Conan, The Feathered Serpent - Part II - Game of the Gods
by Rob Rastorp
Summary: Conan's continuing adventures in Mayapan, and their intersection with Conn's reign as King of Aquilonia as their fates are both affected by the scheming of the dark forces who have Conan in their grip.
1. The Desecration of the Temple

The new year in many lands was a time of feasting, wenching, and merrymaking, when the cares of the old year were lightly tossed away and the fleeting hopes of the new year embraced by all.

In Xlantlantaca, it was a time of dread.

The dark god of that mighty and ancient city, Kukulkan – known by other names in other dark and sombre lands – had revealed long ago to his worshippers that creation was an ephemeral thing, which he had granted on a whim, and which he could take away on a whim. If his followers wished for life, for the world itself to continue, then they must buy another year's existence from him, for he was a jealous and a hungry god who sold his favours to mortals for a high price. And the price was to be paid in human blood.

Each new year's eve, from dusk until the crack of dawn on new year's day, the basalt-flagged streets of Xlantlantaca were lit with torches of dried reeds, by the thousands. Down the broad, straight lanes they led, like thousands of burning stars of scarlet and ochre, to the vast central square that encompassed the step-pyramid of the Temple of Kukulkan. Up the flights of steps to the pinnacle of the temple they continued, now in the form of solid braziers full of burning pitch.

And along those paths and up those stairs, also by the thousands and tens of thousands, were driven the naked, terrified victims destined satiate the bloodlust of Kukulkan. Some had been chosen by lot from amongst the citizens themselves, and they accepted their fate with resigned calm and quiet despair – at least until the moment when they were seized by the priests and shown the dull knife of sacrifice, and realized in terror how immediate and inescapable was their doom.

But by far the majority of victims were wretched slaves captured from the provinces of Xlantlantaca's vast empire, from the desert wastes of the north to the steaming jungles of the south, by its cruel soldiers and slavers. Only those from the tribes of southern Mayapan who had fought for Conan at the Battle of the Reeds were exempt from the selection, on Conan's express order - much to the chagrin of the warriors of Xlantlantaca.

Screaming, crying, laughing hysterically with the light of madness in their eyes, they were driven inexorably to their doom by whips and chains, and cruel blows – all under the watchful eyes of the citizens of Xlantlantaca, nobles and commoners alike, who observed the grim spectacle in silence and with satisfaction.

The pinnacle of the Temple was a broad, squat roof on which hunched a monolith of stone, as ancient as the world itself. Upon that evil place, victim after victim who had been driven up the stairs would be flung screaming on the cold stone of the monolith, which was in truth an altar, their hands and legs seized in the iron grip of the priests, as the head priest gashed a dull obsidian knife deep into the victims chest and ripped out the still-beating heart with his bare hands. The heart and its blood would then be flung into a stone brazier behind the altar, burned to ashes in an oily reek of flame, while the broken body of the victim was flung like a child's doll down the stairs of the far side of the Temple, there to be gathered-up and rendered into tallow and offal. A new victim would be sized from the long line which reached down the stairs, far out into the square, and into the alleys beyond, and the grim ritual would proceed again, victim after victim, from dusk to dawn.

Presiding over this bloody ritual of fear and pain was the Feathered Serpent himself, the lord and master of Xlantlantaca, known also as Kukulkan, for he was a living demigod who embodied the spirit of the dark god, a human avatar of the Lord of Darkness himself. It was he who supervised the grim work of the priests, and whose presence at the ceremony, inhaling the burned hearts and scorched blood of thousands of screaming victims, was essential to its success.

Only when the first light of dawn broke over the mountains to the east would he decree the ceremony successful, and the sacrifice of the victims to have been accepted by the dark god whose spirit he embodied. Then he would dismiss the crowd below – and those few fortunate living victims who had not yet met the sacrificial knife when dawn arrived – and return to his own vast palace for a day of feasting and revelry, full of cruel joy and grim satisfaction that his yearly task was complete.

Or so things had been every year, and year upon year, since time immemorial, since the long-forgotten days when the first stones of Xlantlantaca had been laid amid the steaming vapours and noxious weeds of the primal swampland in which it had been born. But this year, a very different figure presided over these grim festivities than had ever done so before.

He was the Feathered Serpent, and yet it seemed to some he was not – for he was neither of the race of Xlantlantaca, nor did he seem to embody the spirit of his dark god, rather being possessed of his own keen mind and fierce will as if he were still an ordinary man, beholden to no one. Stranger still, he bore in his right hand an ebon staff upon which was mounted a Skull of carven crystal, now dull, now glowing with its own strange, inner light. That it was possessed of its own inner power was well known, for its powers had vanquished the armies of Xlantlantaca sent against him by the previous avatar of the Feathered Serpent, whom he had later slain with his own bare hands.

Stranger still, the Crystal Skull was said to embody the power of Kuthlan, the dreaming god of the deeps, and the archrival and nemesis of Kukulkan, as if the Featherered Serpent now embodied the power of both of these divine enemies in his own person, and yet was beholden to neither. Rumours and prophecies swirled about him, and it was whispered by some that he was a long-promised figure who was fated to arrive in Mayapan on the wings of hope, and yet to plunge the world into a holocaust of flame and chaos.

Far to east, in a land undreamed of beyond the sundering seas, he would have needed no introduction – for he was none other than Conan of Cimmeria, immersed in what was perhaps the last, and beyond doubt the strangest, of his many adventures.

"The time is right, O King!" cried Acotl, the High Priest of Kukulkan. He was a tall, thin, stooped old man, his clean-shaven, hawk-featured face worn like old leather, but his eyes as dark and glinting as the obsidian blade he clutched in his hands. His garish costume of brightly-coloured feathers and dyed animal skins was in sharp contrast to his dark purpose.

"See, the last light of the Sun has faded in the west!" continued Acotl. "Give the command that the first sacrifice might begin!"

"Bring him forward, then," replied Conan impassively, his grey-bearded face an inscrutable mask. He was garbed also in a motely costume of garish feathers, and bore on his head a jade-carved helm in the shape of a serpent's fanged and grinning maw. The Crystal Skull was dark upon its ebon shaft, asleep it seemed for the time being.

"Kukulkan commands the sacrifice to begin!" cried the High Priest in a voice of astonishing strength and power, his weathered features twisted into a hideous grin. As his command echoed across the vast square, two of the lesser priests dragged forth the first victim. She was a young, dark-skinned girl, barely past the first flush of youth, and stark naked as were all the victims. She wept and sobbed pitifully as she was thrown down on the smooth slab of the altar, her arms and legs held securely by the High Priest's silent minions.

"By your life, we gain ours!" intoned the High Priest in the ritual saying he was to repeat thousands of times that night. Then he raised his obsidian dagger high above her chest, ready to strike. The girl had not even the strength to scream in her terror, and yet her dark eyes flashed at Conan, in fear and – perhaps something else?

Down came the High Priest's blade in a flashing arc, as…

"Stop!" cried Conan, rising off his ebon throne. "I command you to cease at once!"

Acotl froze, his blade a handsbreadth above his victim's glistening breast.

"What is this?" he hissed, his voice low and menacing. "My liege, the sacrifice must not be stopped! It must continue, this instant!"

"You will release the girl at once!" commanded Conan in his loud, booming voice, his volcanic blue eyes full of menace as he stared down the hierophant. "And you will release all of the captives of all the lands! All are free to return to their homes, be they near or far!"

As his words echoed across the square, there was at first dead silence. All present, citizens, warriors, priests and victims alike, were frozen with shock, in complete amazement at what they had just heard. Never in ten times a thousand years had such words been spoken in Xlantlantaca!

Then a low, rumbling roar, like an avalanche down a mountainside, began to roll across the mob, ebbing and following along the length and breadth of the square.

"It is treason!" cried some. "Is is blasphemy!" cried others. "The prophecy is true, he has come to bring the end of the world!" cried yet others still.

Or so spoke the citizens of Xlantlantaca. But among the victims, quite another sentiment soon took hold. "Can it be true? Are we to be spared then?" asked some, hardly believing their good fortune. "We knew Conan would not betray us!" cried others, those victims drawn from the mountain folk to the south, who had been the first and foremost amongst Conan's allies before he assumed the mantle of the Feathered Serpent for himself. "All hail Conan the liberator! All Hail Conan the great!"

"Fools!" spat back the citizens. "What good shall a few hours more of life and freedom do you, when the Sun shall never rise again! We shall all soon perish in an eternity of darkness and infinite cold!"

As their debate waxed back and forth, the High Priest, who had stood thunderstruck for some moments by his god-king's unimaginable blasphemy, suddenly sprang to life once more. Turning away from the pitiful girl struggling on the altar – who to his mind deserved no more thought than an insect – he pointed his obsidian blade squarely at Conan, shrieking and cursing in a harsh cry that echoed into the farthest corners of the square.

"Liar! Usurper!" cried Acotl, his dark eyes blazing wildly, a trail of spittle dribbling down his chin. "I see clearly now, you are not the Feathered Serpent at all! This is all the work of that vile bauble, that Crystal Skull, affixed upon your staff! You have used the dark magic of thrice-accursed Kuthlan, foul spawn of the abyss, to claim the place of our god's avatar while denying him an earthly home for his spirit!"

"Enough talk!" boomed Conan, waxing wroth. "You are my subject and shall do as I command, or die upon your own dark altar this night!"

"DIE NOW!" screamed Acotl, plunging straight at Conan's unarmoured chest with his sharp obsidian blade, heedless of his own danger. A whirl of Conan's staff, a sickening crack, and Acotl lay sprawled stone dead, his blood and brains smeared in equal measure on the Crystal Skull and on the basalt floor. The Crystal Skull began to glow dimly as if in hidden mirth.

"You have murdered the High Priest of Kukulkan!" cried one of the late hierophant's acolytes, releasing his hold on the girl, who swiftly broke free from the limp grasp of his counterpart and dashed down the steps to join her kinsmen below.

"Shall you be next?" smiled Conan grimly, as the two acolytes backed away, their dark faces turned pale. Then he raised his broad arms, and called out to the throngs below.

"Tonight you shall see how you have laboured in darkness and falsehood for years beyond counting!" cried Conan. "No matter what your lying priests have told you, their dark sacrifices were in vain. For there shall be no sacrifices this night – I count not my dispatch of yon bag of offal," he spat, gesturing towards the corpse of the High Priest.

"Tonight," he continued, "you all shall learn that the Sun has a mind of its own, and shall rise of its own accord tomorrow no matter what the acts of men may be! You shall spend this night in the square, maintaining silent vigil, and see for yourselves the rise of a new dawn!"

Silence fell across the square indeed, as those assembled passed the long, cold hours to see what would come – some in hope, others in fear. Slowly but surely, an ominous rumbling echoed up from the citizens of the city, as hour after hour went by, and the night remained chill and dark as ever.

Upon the eastern horizon, there was a brief flash of greenish light, tracing its fingers across the dark sky for a mere instant. Then, slowly, inexorably, a pale glow began to appear on the eastern horizon. There were more rumblings and murmurs amongst the crowd – some expressing hope, others fear.

"Look to the East, and see for yourselves!" boomed Conan. "The dawn arrives – there is the disc of the Sun!"

And just as Conan had said, the merest rim of a brilliant disc appeared above the summit of the snow-capped mountains to the east, as the dark sky suddenly was lit up into a deep, translucent blue, and the traces of clouds turned deep orange and blood red amid the growing dawn

"It is as our lord proclaimed!" cried the victms – though victims they were no longer. "The Sun has risen, and not a single sacrifice took place!"

"He sacrificed the High Priest!" cried others. "Perhaps one sacrifice alone sufficied…"

"Nay, that cannot be!" cried others. "That was no sacrifice – neither his heart nor his blood were offered to Kukulkan, as ritual requires."

"Then our god is false!" wailed the citizens, who, far from being glad at the sight of the dawn, were horrified to see that their rituals, their sacrifices, over the countless ages, had availed them not!

"Say rather your priests were false!" cried Conan – though he had known from the beginning that his own power might be challenged, if the dark god these strange folk worshipped, and in whose place he stood, were proven a liar.

"Yes, Kukulkan lives!" cried Conan. "And so does the Sun!"

"And what of these lying priests?" asked one of the would-be victims, a squat, powerfully built man who stood at the top of the steps upon the pyramid, and pointed his thick arm towards the cowering acolytes.

"Do with them as you will," shrugged Conan. "They are of no use to me."

Howling with bloodlust, the man who had spoken turned upon the priests and their acolytes who, too terrified and cowardly even to attempt to fight for their lives, meekly fell to the ground as the mob surged over them, tearing them to pieces in its wrath.

"Such is the fate of all liars, and all who oppose the will of Conan, the Feathered Serpen!" quoth Conan. "Now, to your homes, all of you! Enough time have you spent gawking about the square. Return to your homes, be they near or far, take up your tasks, embrace your wives and children, and return not to this place again for this or any other ceremony. Never again shall the blood of sacrifice stain the soil of Xlantlantaca. I, Kukulkan, the Feathered Serpent, have spoken!"

Conan turned about and strode toward the private steps that led toward to his palace, accompanied by his handful of stolid Jaguar warrior bodyguards, as the crowd did as he had bidden them – the liberated journeying to their homes in the deserts to the north or the mountains and jungles to the south with open joy, the warriors to their barracks in sullen silence, and the citizens to their homes, muttering darkly that no matter that the dawn had arrived, their world had come to an end.


	2. The Prince of the Clouds

"The man is mad, I tell you!" laughed Tlaloc, sweeping aside is emerald-feathered cloak with a flourish as he helped himself to another deep drought of intoxicating liquour – a curious substance distilled from the leaves of cactus plants, invented by none other than the strange kinsman of whom he spoke. "And yet there is method in his madness. In a single night he has struck a greater blow against his adversaries in this city then ever we mountain folk could have in a thousand years of struggle!"

"He is dangerous, and a fool!" growled Xipe, the captain of the guards. A bead of sweat trickled down his dark, smooth face, for this evening in Tlaloc's chambers the night had grown hot and sultry, and his wooden jaguar helmet and fitted body-suit of jaguar skin felt close and clammy.

"Those are dangerous words, for the man responsible for guarding his person," replied Tlaloc demurely.

"And yours are less so?" shot back Xipe. "You mountain folk are not even truly his subjects, for all his pretentions to rule the whole of Mayapan. He may be the god-king of Mayapan, but by right he is _our king_ alone, the liege-lord of Xlantantaca. You folk are but our servants and slaves; or, so you were until these latter days."

"The days of our bowing the knee to you men of Xlantantaca are gone forever," replied Tlaloc, narrowing his eyes. "Am I not the king's brother-in-law, and is not my dear sister his beloved wife? There are few indeed who rank with Prince Tlaloc, Prince of the Clouds as I am deemed in honorific – a fact you would do well to consider before you speak again."

"You would do well to consider that it is foolish to offend a man who commands a company of trained slayers," replied Xipe cooly.

"Your slayers are no threat to me, as long as my sister sits beside the Dragon Throne," shrugged Tlaloc. "You folk have learned a stern lesson in where real power lies – with Conan alone. Well might you be bitter that your lying priests have been exposed for what they are, but you cross him at your peril."

"I fear no man," replied Xipe proudly. "Not even Conan, outlander and barbarian that he is. It is his accursed staff that I fear, that grinning, glowing Crystal Skull of his – and so should all men fear it, yes, even you mountain folk. Your mountain folk might have supplied most of the victims to Kukulkan in years past – but you still worshipped him. He was, he still is, the god of your people. And yet now, it seems his rule has been subverted by that of another god, of Kuthlan, the thrice-accursed beast of the abyss." His dark, smooth face twisted and he spat on the basalt flagstones of the floor.

"Perhaps," replied Tlaloc, curling his lip. "Though our people might do better to demand another god than one who drinks the blood of our innocents."

"And so you would worship Kuthlan?" replied Xipe, genuinely shocked. "You must know the prophecies of what will happen if the sleeping god of the deep awakes! He would devour the world, body and soul. You may think Kukulkan evil, blasphemous though that thought is – but if so you cannot deny he is the lesser of two evils."

"I shall not gainsay you," replied Tlaloc. "It is only those devils on the western coast, the Quechanltni, who worship Kuthlan."

"Aye, and well they have done by it!" cried Xipe fiercely. "Kukulkan's temple and rituals despoiled, his priests murdered, his earthly presence vanished – all at the behest of an outlander, a stranger to Mayapan, who mocks our god even has he claims his throne, and whose power is fueled by that accursed Skull! How can you imagine him to be more than a puppet of Kuthlan? The Quechanlnti must laugh at us behind our backs, even as they prepare our ruin – for they foolishly believe that when Kuthlan rises from the deeps, he will spare them alone."

Tlaloc was silent for some moments. "Well, what you would have me do?" he replied. "You stormed into my chambers some minutes ago, with the look of murder in your eyes, bringing your complaints to me of the desecration of the temple and such. Do you want me to lodge a complaint with His Majesty, on your behalf?" he finished, with a sly grin.

"Don't mock me, boy!" shot back Xipe fiercely. "I was captain of the guard before you fumbled in the dark with your first wench!"

"Then cease your prattle and come to the point," replied Tlaloc more cooly.

"I dare not say my point," replied Xipe. "Rather I put it to you that you should consider the welfare of your own folk if you care not for ours, and whether it is served by having the Feathered Serpent, the King of Xlantantaca, act as if he is a pawn of the Quechalnti and a dupe of their god Kuthlan."

"Your point speaks for itself, and you would do well to say nothing of it to others," replied Tlaloc shrewdly. "Leave me now, and return to your duties."

"But you will think on it?" urged Xipe.

"Did I say I would not?" shrugged Tlaloc.

With a wordless grin, Xipe turned about and headed for the door from Tlaloc's chambers, while the young prince took another draught of his liquor, and kept his counsel to himself.


	3. Behind the Dragon Throne

"Come to bed, my champion!" purred Huitzil, as she toyed with her sheer nightdress suggestively. "You've had enough work for one day – now it is time to take your pleasure."

"My work was a pleasure, on this day at least!" replied Conan with a broad grin, as he circled toward the door which led from his study to his private chambers. "Crom! What a sight!"

"I could only laugh at the shocked faces of those pious fools," smiled Huitzil. "It was a great day for all the people of the Mayapani, and all free folk. How the dogs of Xlantantaca have been brought low!"

"I did not do what I did to bring them low," replied Conan with a frown. Always mercurial, his mood was now grave, and he had a somber mien.

"I did it both for their sake, and for mine," he continued. "For their sake, because I have liberated them from their own delusions – no folk east of the great sea, civilized or barbarous, believes such nonsense about having to make sacrifices to ensure the Sun will rise!" he said with a grunt. "And for my own, because the priests of Kukulkan were a threat to my own power. Now I alone speak for the Feathered Serpent, without some meddlesome, lying priest to interfere."

"Indeed," replied Huitzil coyly. "Though for my part, I care more for the second reason than the first. But if it was for your own power, how do you now stand amongst the wretches of this city? Surely you have made many enemies this day, even as you have strengthened your standing amongst the Mayapani, and your alliance with the Quechalnti."

"I hardly thought my standing with the Mayapani could be stronger," replied Conan. "As for the Quechanlnti, I don't trust any of them farther than I could throw them – albeit that might be for a span or two. I would be more than happy to deal with their meddlesome priests as well, for their dark god Kuthlan is to friend to man. A curse upon both of the dark fiends who have long lorded it over this land!"

Conan then froze amid his pacing, astonished by his wife's reaction. For her coppery skin was almost shock pale, and for a moment he thought he saw murder in her dark eyes – yet she said nothing, her breath quickening silently.

"What now, are you a worshipper of Kuthlan?" said Conan with a laugh, seeking to quell the sudden tension between them. "Perhaps I should watch my back more than I do, even in my own bed!"

"The ways of this land are still strange to you, my husband," replied Huitzil with a voice that was barely above a whisper. "We do not offend our gods here."

"I thought you had just done so a moment ago, at least with Kukulkan," replied Conan with a shrug. "But no matter. For all the women I have had, their minds are still as beyond my ken as they were when I was a youth."

"So it is with all men," replied Huitzil, taking him by the hand and leading him towards their bed. The smile on her face, Conan thought, was belied by the coolness of her stare.


	4. The Cult of the Dreaming God

In a dank, spherical chamber built of solid blocks of carved basalt, covered with rime and nitre, the echo of the Western Sea resonating from the narrow passageway that led to the outside, a group of slight, dark-robed figures stood vigil over their naked captive, a slender, struggling girl. Her mouth was gagged, and yet her dark eyes pleaded desperately as she struggled against her bonds.

Yet it was to no avail. Two of the dark figures, holding her hand and foot, forced her face toward a bronze bowl covered in twisted, inhuman carvings and cryptical glyphs which sat on a tripod over glowing embers. With a flash in the dim torchlight, another of the dark ones whipped out a bronze knife, slicing the girl's throat from ear to ear. As she convulsed in her death agony, her frail spirit departing her ruined flame, a torrent of smoking blood poured out, and the chamber was filled with a foul stench.

After some minutes, the girl's limp body was drained of blood, and hung limply in the wiry grip of her captors. Meanwhile, the dark one who had slain her muttered a series of grim incantations over the incarnadined bowl, the dark blood within smoking and bubbling fiercely as the coals pushed it to boiling.

With a sudden cry, the corpose of the girl lurched upwards as the grim men present watched silently. Then her lithe frame shifted unnaturally, as if he were a puppet on a string. A husky, hollow voice which was not her own issued forth from behind her dead lips, even though her severed throat alone should have rendered that impossible.

 _"_ _Ph_ ** _'_** _nglui_ _mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah_ ** _'_** _nagl fhtagn_ _!_ ** _"_** The syllables were harsh and garbled, forming words not meant to be uttered by human mouths.

 _"_ _Ph_ ** _'_** _nglui_ _mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah_ ** _'_** _nagl fhtagn_ _!_ ** _"_** intoned the dark ones in response. Then one of their number spoke to the possessed corpse of their victim.

"All is as you have foreseen, O deathless one!" he cried. "The outlander from beyond the Eastern Sea has acted in all ways according to the prophecy! The false god Kukulkan – " he spat on the floor on saying the name, accompanied by his fellows – "has had his cult despoiled, his temple defiled, his priests slain. He has been denied his sacrifices by his own puppet, his own Feathered Serpent, the King of Xlantlantaca and Mayapan! His age is at an end, and your return, O mighty Kuthlan, is at hand!"

 _"_ _Trust not the Feathered Serpent!"_ croaked the one possessed in reply, her body rigid and strained to bursting by the power of the being who spoke through her.

 _"_ _He serves his own ends! And do not underestimate Kukulkan, no matter the insults to his cult, for he is ever false and guilesome, and I am in great peril from his wiles. For the Crystal Skull, through which a treacherous priest of Lemuria devised a portal to the heart of my own powers, lies now within the grasp of Kukulkan thanks to the meddling of the Feathered Serpent, of this Conan of the lands beyond the Eastern Sea. Only the slenderest thread of fate prevents the Crystal Skull from falling into my enemy's scaly claws! Should that happen, should he unlock its power for himself, his victory over me shall be complete, and this world shall forever fall within his grasp! Never again shall I rise from my watery tomb!"_

There was a murmur amongst the dark ones, as they whispered in consternation amongst themselves. Then the bravest amongst them spoke again.

"Then what are your commands, O giver of freedom to men?" said he.

 _"_ _One of my followers, in secret, has insinuated themselves very close to this Conan,"_ replied the possessed avatar of Kuthlan. _"They will send him to you when the time is right; for he has made a bargain with Kukulkan which he now seeks to break, though he has no means to do so. You will provide him with that means, in which I shall instruct you when the time is right. Then I shall dispel Kukulkan to the void eternally, and this world and all that lies within shall be mine to raven and devour! And yet there shall be rewards enough for my faithful servants."_

"We hear and obey, O deathless one who shall make us deathless!" intoned the cultists. The one possessed then gave a violent shudder, only to drop suddenly to the floor as the men released their grasp, still where she lay and now mercifully at rest. s

"For all those who serve the lord of the deeps," intoned one of the cultists with a ritual gesture towards the slain victim, "death is merely a slumber. They shall awake in freedom and glory when the dreaming god awakes, and the world is reborn in a holocaust of flame and ecstasy! All hail Kuthlan!"

"All hail Kuthlan!" replied his comrades fiercely.

"And who is this member of our cult, deep inside the palace of our enemies?" asked another. "For we know that none of the Quechanlti remained in Xlantlantaca more than a few months after the great Battle of the Reeds."

"That is not for us to know at this time," replied the first, evidently their leader. "We must merely wait, and prepare. It is enough for us to know that on what seems the threshold of his ultimate triumph, the demon-spawn Kukulkan faces his ultimate doom – for the stars are right, and the return of great Kuthlan is at hand. _Ph_ ** _'_** _nglui_ _mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah_ ** _'_** _nagl fhtagn_ _!_ ** _"_**


	5. The Shadow of the Serpent

In the grand bedchamber of the Royal Palace of Tarantia, capitol of Aquilonia, mightiest of the Hyborian realms, amid a vast bed carved of alabaster and covered with silken pillows and soft sheets, King Conan II – Conn, as he was known to his closest friends – slept fitfully, awakening every few minutes as he tossed and turned amid the still, humid, rose-scented air.

It had been a wild night of debauchery, such as he had indulged in countless times since his father's sudden abdication and departure of some years before. Some part of him – a lingering vestige of the dour and sombre ways of his Cimmerian forefathers, perhaps – felt a tinge of shame at wallowing in such revelries of wealth and luxury.

But he was his father's son, and his father, for all his grim Cimmerian heritage, had always had a spirit more akin to that of the Cimmerians' Aesir neighbours, those mighty Northmen who reveled in taking life by the throat and squeezing whatever they wished out of it. And Conn himself was but half-Cimmerian, and had never been to the land of his forefathers. Raised from birth in the Royal Palace of Tarantia as heir to the Lion Throne, he was also half-Hyborian by his late mother's blood, half-Nemedian to be precise, and that nation of worldly philosophers had never taken as dim a view of the enjoyment of earthly pleasures as did the staid and sober Aquilonian priests of Mitra, god of the Hyborian race. Conn's heritage, a mix of the hot and lusty blood of the greatest and boldest warrior of the age and that of palace concubine, in truth did little predispose him to refrain from those pleasures and privileges which his royal station afforded him.

Conn's lack of royal, noble or even Aquilonian blood was a fact not unnoticed by those amongst his nobles who, as ambitious as they were unwise, still harkened for the long-lost days when Numidides, last king of a weak and degenerate Aquilonian royal house, sat (or slept) upon the Lion Throne of Tarantia. The son of a usurper was still viewed by many as a usurper in his own right. For this reason alone, Conn had good cause to maintain a watchful guard at all times, and not to take his safety for granted even in the depths of his own Royal Palace. Even when he slept soundly, he was never entirely at ease in his heart. And tonight he was restless – partly on account of too much wine drunk and too many women pleasured in too short a time, and partly on account of something else he could not name, and yet which laid a cold chill down his spine when he half-turned his thoughts to it.

In time it seemed to Conn as he hung suspended in the dim half-light between fretful sleep and wakefulness that a shadow took form against the alabaster walls of his chamber – a shadow in the form of a serpent, big as an ox, black as midnight, its slitted eyes glowing with an unholy crimson. Closer and closer it crept to his bed, its envenomed jaws dripping acid onto the marble floor, which smoked and pitted beneath.

Conn could not move, but in his dream-state he felt his blood run cold, as the primal fears of his ancestors and all Hyborian legend took form before him – for was not the serpent the symbol of Set, greatest demon and chiefest calamity of the age? And now this foul being hovered right over his motionless, naked form, gloating with delight as it prepared to snuff out his young life with a single, poisoned strike.

Conn struggled to awake from this nightmare, and as he did so the serpent shifted in form, until it appeared not as a giant serpent but a giant man, dark-skinned as a Kusthie, his hugely-muscled form draped in robes of black cloth, a wicked-looking curved blade held in his outstretched hand.

A white fire of panic shot through Conn's veins as he realized that this was no longer any dream, but rather a scene from real life!

Cursing out loud, Conn barely managed to roll out of harm's way as the envenomed blade of his would-be assassin plunged through the pillow where his head had lain but a moment before. The man grunted as he pulled his blade up for another strike, his brutal face contorted with rage that his prey had eluded him at the last moment.

The man leaned forward over the bed, but his balance was off, and Conn was now wide-awake and alert as a tiger – a gift of his Cimmerian heritage. Whipping out the sharp dagger he always kept hidden beneath one of the pillows of his bed, he blocked the man's advancing blade-arm with his left hand, while plunging his dagger into his adversary's exposed flank with his right.

The man stifled a scream, dropping his envenomed blade an inch from Conn's head from shock and pain. But then in a flash he grabbed Conn by the throat, seeking to squeeze the life out of his foe, and to silence the young king before he could call for the palace guard, who stood watch just outside the chamber while the desperate struggle continued in silence.

His eyes bulging out of his skull, a dark and ominous shadow appearing at the limits of his vision, Conn tensed his thick neck-muscles as best he could while plunging his blade again and again into the thick, corded muscles of the assassin's heavy frame. But the man seemed made of iron, and seconds lasted for an eternity as Conn wondered desperately how he could possibly throw the man off before his own soul was forced from its body to face its face in the netherworld.

Then, marvelling at his own stupidity, as if he were still as drunk as when he had taken to bed, Conn did the obvious – and shifted his razor sharp blade a foot lower, slicing of his foe's manhood as easily as if it were made of butter.

The huge man shot back and let out an unearthly scream of agony as blood burst forth in spurts from beneath his shredded robes. His eardrums pulsing with thunder, his neck on fire as the blood returned to his nearly crushed veins, Conn watched again as if in a dream as the doors to his chamber shot open, and a moment later his dozen bodyguards shot his foe full of crossbow bolts.

The Kushite (if such indeed he was) tottered on his feet for a moment, his dark face now locked in a silent scream, his huge frame stuck like a pincushion with iron bolts as blood poured from his body in over a dozen bloody streams. Then he collapsed suddenly, twitched for a moment, and lay stone dead, his dark soul dispatched to the netherworld to meet its deserved fate.

"Your Majesty!" cried the young lieutenant in command of the night's watch, the white plume on his black helm bobbing absurdly as he rushed to his young liege's side. "Are you injured? Has this dog struck you with his foul blade?" Even as he spoke, another guardsman removed the Kushite's curved dagger from the bed by its grip, careful not to touch its sharp blade, which appeared envenomed with a pungent slime that was an evil shade of verdure.

"I live," gasped Conn, "but by Crom and Mitra it was a close-run thing! How in the names of all of the seven hells did this devil find his way into my bedchamber, when you young toughs stand guard outside the door, and even a Darfari ape could not climb up the polished marble walls of this tower from the outside?"

"I swear I know not, my liege," stammered the lieutenant, his smooth face pale with fear and shame. "I swear by Mitra and on the lives of my wife and son that he did not enter by the door, nor is there any other way into your private chamber that I can imagine!"

"Evil sorcery let this dog into His Majesty's chamber," cried another of the guards, engaged in searching the blood-drenched form of the assassin. "Look! A foul token of our greatest foe!"

And he held up an amulet, a golden circlet upon a golden chain, which had lain about the assassin's neck, underneath his robes. On it was engraved the unmistakeable sigil of Set, the Old Serpent, enemy of Mitra, lord of light, and bitterest foe of the Hyborian race, and of all men who had turned their backs on the darkness of the uttermost void to worship the divine fire.

"Mitra save us!" cried the other guardsmen, invoking His sign of protection with their crossed fingers, while Conn, still unsteady on his feet, lifted his naked body off his bed and slipped on a blue silken tunic he had thrown over a nearby chair.

"The sigil of Set," whispered Conn. Then, more loudly, "A Stygian plot! Once again that foul breed of sorcerers sets itself against the Lion Throne!"

"Shall it be war then, your Majesty?" asked the lieutenant, clenching his sword hilt in anticipation of striking blows against the ancient and despised enemy of the Hyborian race.

"A holy war?" smiled Conn. "The fair worshippers of Mitra against the rabid dogs of Set? We shall see. I shall call a council of war, and set our best spies to work at once. We shall determine soon enough where to fix the blame. But by Crom and Mitra, heads will roll in the thousands for this fell attempt against my life, or I am no son of Conan the Great!"

A cheer rose up at the name of his illustrious father, and Conn, who smiled outwardly, wondered privately how his long-vanished father might have acted in his place.


	6. An Ill-starred Bargain

"By Crom and Ymir, I curse the day I invented this foul brew!" moaned Conan, clutching his greying skull as he lay on his bed of exotic plumage in the inmost chambers of his royal suite – a vast series of rooms carved from blocks of basalt, but painted in bold colours with fabulous and fantastical designs of men, gods, and animals of all kinds.

"I had thought that cactus sap had quite the bite to it," he continued, "and there was no liquor to be found in all this wretched land, but I've suffered wounds to my head in battle which hurt less the next morning than the headache caused by this vile stuff!"

"Shall I order all batches of it destroyed?" asked Tlaloch, a bemused air on his youthful, copper-skinned face, his dark eyes flashing with secret humor as he leaned casually on the wall opposite his liege.

"I'll have you flayed alive if you do!" grimaced Conan through his pain. "Better foul liquor in the evenings than none at all!"

"We knew nought of such things before your arrival, " observed Tlaloch, toying absently with one of the brilliant green feathers of his headdress. "We had our smoking weed, of course, but that is a stimulant to thought and speech, and did not cloud our minds as does this liquor of yours. Though truth to tell, many of our folk have grown fond of it, though none perhaps as much as you."

"I have my own reasons for taking to drink," replied Conan, more sombrely, "which are none of your concern."

"Surely they are," replied Tlaloch cautiously. "Both as your lieutenant, and as your brother by marriage."

"We share many burdens, it is true," acknowledged Conan. "Keeping the snapping curs of this city at bay for one, while maintaining the balance with the Quechanlnti along the western coast and the support of your own mountain folk into the bargain. But some burdens are mine alone, and I will not trouble others with them."

"Still, you could at least tell me what they are," pressed Tlaloch. "Or do you not trust me after all these years?"

"I said they were mine alone!" snapped Conan, his volcanic blue eyes blazing dangerously. "Crom and Mitra, man, the last thing I need with my head on fire is you pestering me with questions I have told you I won't answer! If you can't cure my headache on the spot, then get out and leave me to suffer in silence!"

"As His Majesty commands," replied Tlaloch with a bow, though his full lips curled with seeming displeasure – or was it disdain? He turned about with a flourish of his magnificent cloak of scarlet and sapphire feathers woven with tokens of jade and gold, and made his exit from Conan's chambers to the public halls of the palace beyond.

Conan heaved himself up from his bead, and took a long draught of cool, clean water from the intricately carved stone jar that lay by the foot of his bed. Then he crashed down on the bed again, turning on his side as his head spun, and sought refuge from the tortures of liquor in excess within the grey shadowlands of sleep.

He had drifted off for he knew not how many hours, when he was swept up from the shadows of deep sleep into the twilight land of dreams. Once again, he found himself in a vast hall of endless night, its heavy, squat ebon pillars stretching from the darkness below to that above, the only fitful illumination provided by a handful of bronze braziers squatting on the unseen floor. In front of Conan stood an ebon dais, upon which coiled a grim figure whom he now recognized only too well. Set the Accursed!

"And how fare you kinging it in Mayapan, O Conan the Great?" enquired Set mockingly, the sable coils of his serpent form churning endlessly as his scarlet forked tongue flicked in and out between sharp ivory fangs the size of broadswords, and his crimson, slitted eyes glowed ominously amid the dark.

"And what does a god care for the welfare of a mortal?" replied Conan, who noted that his waking torment had subsided entirely, and he felt as wide awake and alert as a tiger in a trap.

"Not at all," replied Set with a flicker of his forked tongue. "It was merely a polite nothing. In fact I have summoned you here in your mortal sleep on account of the unfinished business between us – I'm sure you recall well the terms of our bargain that put you on the Dragon T`hrone of Xlantlantaca."

"I do indeed," replied Conan stoutly. "And it is not yet twelve years since we made our bargain. One year yet remains, more or less."

"Less - and so it does, as time is measured on your feeble little planet," replied Set, his eyes narrowing ominously. "And to what good use you have put the time I have given you! Defiling my temple, and slaying my priests, and mocking my teachings, and denying me the sacrifices that were my due!"

"Surely a god as ancient and mighty as you does not go hungry?" replied Conan with a sneer.

"Oh, but I do, mortal!" replied Set, slithering off his dais towards Conan's form, so that he soon towered over the Cimmerian. "A thousand worlds offer me their sacrifices, and yet I begrudge the loss of even the least of them! And above all, I hunger for that foul bauble which you stole from the realm of my enemy, and now cling to unjustly yourself!"

"I did not steal it," replied Conan evenly. "It was unguarded, and I claimed it by the sweat of my brow. No man, and no god, has a higher claim to the Crystal Skull than do I!"

"Is that so?" replied Set. "My claim shall be higher than yours soon enough, by your own sworn oath! And even so, it was not unguarded as well you know. You evaded its shambling guard, the servant of my enemy, the first mortal ever to do so. How _he_ would view your theft, well…even I can hardly imagine the torment he would inflict upon you, if he stirred to wakefulness from his slumber of the eons! You are lucky indeed to have entreated with me first."

"I do not fear the torment of that rotten fish, Kuthlan…" began Conan, but instantly the halls of Set were plunged into utter darkness, as the dark gods' voice cried out deafeningly,

"DO NOT SPEAK HIS NAME IN MY HALLS, FOOL!"

Set's glowing eyes, still visible in the dark, nearly froze Conan with their infinite malice, as if the old serpent were poised to strike, and Conan lurched away from him with a thousand generations of instinct…

…only to find himself falling, endlessly falling, in the limitless dark of the Void. For how long he fell, and how far, Conan could not tell, for time and space seemed to have no meaning in this eternal emptiness that lay beyond all light and life.

But then something changed, subtly, and Conan began to feel a resistance to his fall, his phantom limbs flailing as if in some pliable yet heavy fluid. There was also a shift in the appearance of his surroundings, which were lit almost as if with a dim, barely perceptible greenish light, that came from far above, and faded more and more into uttermost darkness below.

Conan's descent ended suddenly, yet seemingly without harm, as he found himself standing on a soft, yielding surface, as if it were mud or mire of some kind in which he sank halfway up to his knees. Then he realized that before him this strange place was not empty – in the shimmering, greenish light, he could barely see the bizarre and fantastical outline before him of what seemed a vast city, carved out of solid stone, into the most improbably and inconceivably twisted shapes and forms he could imagine.

Indeed, it was impossible even to describe in mortal speech what he saw, save that the immense monoliths, and towers, and bridges, and stairs, and halls were all _wrong …_ their forms, their angles, how they stood opposed to each other, none of it made any sense, or could possibly have been conceived by the mind of man. What diseased mind did conceive of it, Conan cared not to contemplate.

As he stood in the mire, his long greying hair floating aimlessly in what he now recognized was _water_ – though how he could breathe under such crushing depths, or at all, he knew not – he noticed the largest of the halls before him, its pitted, domed, surface writhing with twisted, knotted spirals carved into the rock. It was bisected by two vast, square doors, slanted acutely to the ground, carved with hideous shapes that were yet somehow strangely familiar to him. The most acute terror struck Conan to the core as he stared at those doors, possessed by the terrible fear that they might fall open, and blast his eyes with the sight of what lay within.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the doors began to open, Conan's eyes fixed on the darkness within, which he yet somehow knew was not empty, but seething with evil life, and power unimaginable. He let out a wordless scream…

…and found himself wide awake in his own chambers, drenched in sweat, as his wife Huitzil and a dozen of his guardsmen, clad in armour of the jaguar, the ocelot, the eagle and the snake, came rushing to his side.

"My husband, what is wrong?" cried Huitzil, throwing her slender form against his. "You cried out as if your soul had been wrenched from your body!"

"Aye, my liege!" said the lieutenant of the guard, an ocelot warrior. "We feared someone had secreted themselves in your chambers, and struck against you, mad though man must be to strike against a living god!"

"I am fine!" snapped Conan, brusquely pushing Hutzil away and turning squarely to his guards. "Stop fussing over me like a bunch of old women! I may be old myself, but I'm not at death's door yet."

"It is only out of our love for you that we fear for your safety!" reproached Hutzil, brushing her dark hair out of her face so that it fell over her thin blue gown. "You have slept half the day away, which is not your habit, and then we hear you cry out as if…"

"Enough!" shouted Conan again. "All of you, out! I would be alone."

"At once, my liege!" acknowledged the lieutenant, as he and the other guardsmen turned about and strode out of the room. Huitzil, however, remained behind, standing cautiously a few feet beside her husband.

"And I for one will defy your order," she replied. "You rebuffed my brother yesterday evening, but I still claim the rights of a wife!"

"Then you have the right to remain and be silent!" replied Conan sourly. "Crom! Is there no more liquor?"

"You've had enough of your liquor," she replied, her tone more insistent now. "I'll fetch you some water myself."

Hutzil slid gracefully out of the room, only to reappear a few moments later with a pitcher full of cold, fresh water, crudely carved from solid pumice, but decoratively inlaid with jade and gold. Conan took the pitcher from her abruptly and drained it in one gulp, before releasing a massive belch and then casting the pitcher across the room, where it landed on the basalt floor with a heavy thud.

"It seems you follow the manners of one of our hill villages, even in your royal palace!" she observed wryly.

"Can't a man act as one without insults from his wife?" replied Conan gruffly.

"It was hardly an insult," she demurred. "But I do wish you would tell me what is troubling you, instead of brushing me aside. I am the mother of your only child, of your infant daughter Huitzilipocthli, and yet you treat me as if I were nothing!"

"More like she is my five-hundredth child," replied Conan evenly, "mayhap I will grant you she is only my second legitimate one. I can't account for most of the rest of them."

"Is that so?" replied Hutzil, more coldly now, though despite Conan's refusal to disclose his past beyond the Eastern Sea she had not imagined at Conan's healthy age that she was the first woman he had ever known.

"What of it?" asked Conan with a shrug. "A man has needs. But as to your question…" He frowned for some moments, appearing almost hesitant in a way that was quite unusual for him, but then lowered his voice and looked into her eyes.

"Tell me of this, this god of the deeps, Kuthlan. What do you know of him?"

"Only what everyone in Mayapan knows," said Huitzil. "Kuthlan is the great enemy of Kukulkan. He is the Lord of the Deeps Below, of the Dark Waters, just as Kukulkan is the Lord of the Void Above, the Rushing Winds, the Dark and Empty Airs. So far as is known, only the Quechalnti worship Kuhtlan openly."

"So far as is known?" replied Conan, lowering his greying brows. "Do you mean there are those in Mayapan who worship him in secret?"

"There are rumours," she replied with a casual shrug. "I know nothing myself."

"And why are Kukulkan and Kuthlan such great enemies?" asked Conan. "Why do they even bother with each other at all, rather than keep their deeps below and voids above to themselves, and leave mortal folk alone?"

"How can a mortal scry the motives of gods?" asked Huitzil. "They have been enemies from time immemorial; it is not our lot to know more."

"And yet neither is a friend to man," replied Conan sourly. "Though I have never had any use for any of the gods myself."

"Either might be a great friend to a man of use to them," said Huitzil. "Kukulkan has certainly been a friend to you. He elevated you from leader of a gang of hill-tribes, to god-emperor of all of Mayapan, in a single day!"

"Because I am of use to him," replied Conan, only to realize with a silent curse that he had let down his guard.

"And how are you of use to him, my husband?" she asking, with only the slightest hint of insistence in her tone. "What attribute do you posses that led to your elevation in his esteem?"

"That is none of your concern," replied Conan, but she cut him off:

"No doubt it is all our concern," she replied, her face grim and serious, "and I am not such a fool as you think me, husband. Kulkulkan spared you and elevated you to your present lofty position because you were chosen by the Crystal Skull as its bearer in the lands of Men."

"You seem to know much for a mere woman," replied Conan, his deep blue eyes narrowing with the slightest trace of suspicion, "and no doubt far more than is good for you of such night-black sorcery."

"I know only what is known to all the women of this land," she replied with a trace of a smile. "But if you do not trust your own wife, and want to be left alone with your drink and your nightmares…"

"Crom girl, you sting me to the quick!" replied Conan sourly. "I am not yet an old doddard, even if I look like one."

Conan was silent for a few moments, and then said almost ashamedly, "I must tell someone or I will go mad…I can no longer deaden my nerves sufficiently with drink. I will tell you the facts plainly and simply then, though you must promise me they will not leave this room."

"I promise," she replied with a nod.

"Then listen carefully, for I shall not repeat myself," he began. "When I disappeared in plain view in the battle before the city walls, well over eleven years ago now, I appeared before Kukulkan himself! Not within the city, I deem, but somewhere far beyond it…"

Seeing his wife remain silent, and surprised that she did not appear shocked, he continued, "Kukulkan is known by another name in my homeland beyond the Eastern Sea – there, he goes by the name of Set, and there are other nations that worship him, as does this one. But be that as it may, Kukulkan or Set if you will sought to wheedle the Crystal Skull from my grasp. For some reason beyond my ken, he could not harm me while I bore it, at least not directly, nor could he take it for himself against my will."

"And yet plainly you did not give it to him," she replied. "For we have all seen you bear it in public many times since. Surely even now it resides in that obsidian chest of yours, deep in your private study, which you permit no man or woman to open on pain of death – not that any would dare, for all of your personal guards and servants and those of your couriers in the know suspect what lies therein, and none dares risk the wrath of the Crystal Skull. "

"Of course I didn't give it to him!" replied Conan, his voice rising louder. "At least," he said more hesitantly, "not yet…"

"What do you mean, 'not yet'?" she replied, her dark eyes narrowing, her hands it seemed suddenly clenched tightly into fists.

"What is the use of dissimulating, now that I have told you so much that should have remained hidden?" replied Conan. "I made a pact with Set…"

"A pact?" she replied, her lips white with tension, though Conan seemed unaware of the change in his wife's attitude, engrossed as he was in his own troubles.

"Yes, a pact!" replied Conan with a snarl. "He threatened to imprison me forever in the Outer Void, which lies beyond all – or some such mystical nonsense – but a threat I took seriously all the same. And so I made a pact with him, to my own advantage at least."

"Evidently to his advantage as well," replied Huitzil, her voice restrained as if with hidden anger. "And what were the terms of this pact?"

"Quite simply this," replied Conan,"he would return me to the world of the living for a dozen years under the bright sun of our world, to rule this land as the Feathered Serpent, his avatar on Earth, but with my mind and faculties intact, not enslaved to him body and soul like all my predecessors in that role, including my poor old comrade Sigurd of Vanaheim."

"And at the end of the twelve years?" she hissed.

"Well, naturally I am to give the Crystal Skull to Set, of my own free will and without let or hindrance," replied Conan darkly. "On the twelfth anniversary, which is well less than one year hence. What he plans to do with it after, I know not. He seems to feel that somehow the Skull is related to Kuthlan, his nemesis, and that by taking possession of it he can somehow gain the advantage over him…"

"You fool!" she shrieked, slapping him hard across the face. "You worthless outlander scum! Have you no mind at all, to do as you have done! The prophecy is in tatters now…" She breathed heavily, her dark eyes wide with rage and fear, as Conan, suppressing any visible expression of the surprise he felt at her violent reaction, stared at her grimly.

"An you were a man," growled Conan, rubbing his sore cheek with one palm as he raised the other menacingly in a clenched fist, "your head and shoulders would soon part company. Strike me again, woman, or speak to me again so, and so it shall surely pass!"

"What does it matter whether I die today or months from now?" she laughed, almost hysterically, as she backed away, a light near that of madness playing in her eyes. "You have damned and doomed us all! Aye, and you know it too! That is why you spend all day mired in drink…"

"Enough!" shouted Conan, his aged yet stentorian voice echoing throughout his private chambers and into the shadowy corridors beyond, where it set his guards and servants whispering in gossip.

"Aye, enough!" she laughed again, her voice hard and bitter. "Enough ramblings from your empty head! Now you will listen to me, husband, and I will add to your scanty store of knowledge of this land and its folk – much good that will do any of us now!"

Conan glowered at her, his volcanic blue eyes blazing dangerously, but did not lay hands on her – for in spite of his bloodcurdling words of moments before, it was against his personal code of honour to lay hands forcefully on a woman, unless in direst need. Huitzil meanwhile composed herself, her whole manner changing as her voice became calm and cold, and her dark eyes glittering wildly, though whether with wrath or the spark of madness he could not tell. _Crom,_ he thought to himself, _have I ever really known this woman, or her folk, or anything about this strange land at the edge of the world_?

"You mock us women folk as stupid and weak," she told him, "as do all men. And yet you are wrong. The Mayapani have always been servants of Kukulkan at least in appearances, and the menfolk truly so even though they chafed under his yoke alongside us, and so in truth did many of us women worship him. So it was, at least, until you disrupted the ceremony of the new year not long after your coronation, over eleven years ago, and threw all the folk of this land into doubt and disbelief, save the Quechalnti servants of Kuthlan alone"

She smiled grimly. "Yet not all women accepted having our husbands, sons, daughters, sisters, and ourselves taken away in chains to die on the black, blood stained altars of Kukulkan here in this accursed city. And so, in silent and in secret, on caves and in mountaintops, in blackest night, and even by the shore of the ageless sea Western Sea, which our people fear, _some_ women found a new god to worship! A god who someday would lead us and all of his followers into liberation from bondage to Kukulkan, a bright new age born in a holocaust of flame and ecstasy, an age of freedom and liberty unrestrained, and age of infinite pleasures and eternal life!"

"I've heard better promises from the worshippers of some dark gods beyond the Eastern Sea," Conan replied with a shrug. "No doubt equally false."

"You know nothing!" she replied scornfully. "It was men like you who put our people into bondage to Kukulkan in the first place! But no matter. His power on this Earth is coming to an end, and he knows it. The stars are changing, and the age of his dark void is at an end. Soon the age of the deeps shall begin!"

"The age of the deeps," replied Conan with a frown, remembering again his nightmare of that morning. "You mean…"

"Yes, even you have guessed it," she replied. "I am a members of the Sisterhood of the Kraken, the secret worshippers of Kuthlan amongst the slaves of Kukulkan! And long have we struggled in the shadows, with the secret aid of our Quechalnti allies, and watched and waited for our savour to appear from beyond the Eastern Sea, to bring the Age of Kukulkan to an end, and usher in the Age of Kuthlan!"

"It seems to me you propose to replace one shambling horror of a night-black bygone age with another," replied Conan, still remembering uneasily his terror at the climax of his dream, as the doors to the watery temple of the deeps had begun to open to reveal the being that watched and waited within.

"Because, as I have said, you are a fool!" she replied harshly. "But you are much worse than that. For in your sheer outlander, barbarian stupidity, you, Conan of the Isles, our savour, our liberator, he who by the will of destiny took possession of the Crystal Skull and bore it into battle against our ancient foes…in the greatest hour of our need, you betrayed us all! Aye, and you had not even the wit to realize it, until too late!"

"I betrayed no one," replied Conan sternly. "I am no servant of this Kuthlan of yours, for whom I care not one jot more than for Set. I bought myself time, time to think about how to put off Set, or Kukulkan as you call him, until I can think how to outwit him, or to…"

"Or to what?" she replied mockingly. "To prove yourself more clever and deceitful than the father of lies? Surely you jest. And only now, at the eleventh hour, do you reveal what you have done!"

"If you have nothing more to say than to mock me," replied Conan sourly, as he began pacing about the room, "then get yourself out of my sight! The 'Sisterhood of the Kraken', you say? A witches coven, more like! I never intended to marry a witch, nor do I intend to remain married to one! It chills my heart to think that your black witch's blood runs in our daughter's veins - will she grow up to become a foul harpy, and worshipper of evil, as are you?"

"Our fair flower Huitzilipocthli is not yet initiated into the Sisterhood, being short of her thirteenth year," replied Huitzil with a frown. "And yet I care not what you think of her or of me!" she spat contemptuously. "But if you wish to save us all from doom, then you have but one choice. You must seek the aid of the high priests of Kuthlan among the Quechalnti, for they alone could guess by what means you can unravel your pact, and save us all…"

"Save us all from what?" replied Conan. "You mean save your dark god of the deeps from destruction, perhaps! And what good will it do the race of men if he rules in place of Kukulkan? It might be out of the frying pan, and into the fire – or the water."

"Then shall I reveal to you still more hidden lore?" replied Hutzil. "I will tell you what I suspect of what shall happen, unless we can undo the damage you have done, and do it quickly, before the last of your dozen years is out. The Crystal Skull, as you know or may have guessed, is all that remains of a long-dead mage who was once in the service of Kuthlan, the dreaming god who yet can speak to mortal men in their dreams, and by other more direct means, even though his physical form has been entombed in his sunken city beneath the waves since time immemorial. This mage had sworn, in exchange for taking a good part Kuthlan's power into his own mortal frame, to use his powers and his skills to slay Kuthlan's mortal enemies, and by the power vested in him combined with his own mage's will to stir the dreaming god to waking life, so that his waking form could break the bonds of his imprisonment and rule this Earth once more, as he did at the dawn of time!"

"But for reasons known to none other than himself," she continued, "this mage of Kuthlan, whose name is long forgotten, betrayed our master! Instead of using his power in service of Kuthlan as sworn by his oath, instead he used it upon himself – seeking, it seems, to ensure that Kuthlan remained imprisoned beneath the waves forever."

"And mayhap he had good reason for so doing," observed Conan with a skeptical air.

"His mortal body could not contain such unimaginable power for long," continued Huitzil, ignoring the slight, "and so rather than discharging that power in service of Kuthlan, or having his mortal flesh and bone consumed by it, he directed his power within and turned his mortal frame into still, pure, incorruptible crystal, so to remain forever – or so he thought. Though even he underestimated the power of his spell, for legend says his temple and his city, and its inhabitants, also were all turned to crystal forever in the blink of an eye, in the days long before the great deluge swept the world. After the deluge, his temple alone remained above the waves to the present day – although I am told by our Quechalnti friends that it too sank beneath the seas at last, when you took the Crystal Skull yourself, or at least when it allowed you to take it."

"All very interesting. Still you have not told me what will happen if Kukulkan does get the Crystal Skull for himself," replied Conan, growing visibly impatient. "When will you end your babbling about ancient mummery and get to the point?"

"I am trying to fill your empty head with knowledge, so that you can understand the answer," she shot back. "It was long prophesied in Mayapan that a strange man would appear from beyond the Eastern Sea, who would take the Crystal Skull for himself, and use its power to defeat once and for all the darkness of Kukulkan! And with Kukulkan dispatched, and the Crystal Skull in the hands of the followers of Kuthlan, nothing would stand in the way of Kuthlan's return and his liberation of mankind!"

" For," she continued, "since Kuthlan was cast into his watery prison and his dream state eons ago by the thrice-accursed Elder Gods - for what selfish and cruel reasons we know not - the Elder Gods have long since retreated to the ethereal realms from whence they came, and Kuthlan's dark nemesis, Kukulkan, has had free reign upon this world. The skies and the surface of the land, he dominates, save in rare pockets and islands here and there where Kuthlan's power holds true. Only on and beneath the seas does Kukulkan fail to hold any sway."

"Never until the end of time," she intoned, "could Kukulkan have taken the Crystal Skull by force, charged as it is with the raw power of his nemesis. But now you have given him freely that which he could never have obtained by any means for himself! For the ancient and deepest magics that govern such things will bind you to your word, as surely as you live and draw breath this instant! There is nothing you can do, by your own power, to deny Kukulkan his due."

"And still you have not told me what may perchance, when he claims the Skull for himself," replied Conan with a weary sigh.

"No man could know, for certain," she replied, shaking her head. "But it seems beyond doubt that with the Crystal Skull in his power, Kukulkan at the very least will thwart the prophecy of his ruin, and consign his ancient foe to eternal imprisonment. And beyond that, who can say? For his own power and wisdom are very great. The priests of the Cult of Kuthlan would know better than I. But I fear that with such power in his scaly claws, Kukulkan's power will be magnified unimaginably – enough to plunge this world, perhaps even the entire universe, into eternal darkness and endless night, and he lording over the tombs of all the worlds as he as ever desired in his black heart."

"I feared as much myself," Conan admitted sombrely. "The followers of Set, as still I think of him, have ever been the darkest evil to afflict the lands I have known east of the sea. And time and again, it seems, Set has been the greatest foe behind my other foes, from the Stygian priest-sorceror Thoth-Amon, to the dark forces that spurred the Nemedian invasion of Aquilonia when I was in my prime…"

"I know not any of these names or places," replied Huitzil, a note of urgency in her voice," but it matters not. Your instincts are correct – you recognize as well as I that above all else, the Crystal Skull must not fall into the claws of Kukulkan, or as you name him, of Set! And only the Cult of Kuthlan can aid you to prevent that fate."

"And yet there we differ," replied Conan, his dark blue eyes narrowing with suspicion. "For I trust this Kuthlan of yours no more than I trust Kukulkan. Both I deem demons from the blackest pit."

"You blaspheme!" she cried, full of wrath again, her lips thin and face pale with suppressed rage.

"I can blaspheme far worse than that," he replied evenly, "and do so regularly. Would you like to know my views of their respective parentage?"

"The day will come when you will rue your insolence against our master!" she hissed. "But for now, his Cult has no choice but to make use of you as chosen bearer of the Crystal Skull, and you have no choice but to accept our aid. For if you have not conceived with your own addled wits a stratagem to cheat Kukulkan of his due in the past eleven years and more, how on earth do you imagine you shall do so in the final months that remain?"

"There you have me," acknowledged Conan with equanimity. "I had hoped to find the answer in draughts of liquor, but at this rate I'll own that I have failed."

"You must come with me to visit the priests of the Cult of Kuthlan, by the shore of the Western Sea in the lands of the Quechalnti," she pressed him urgently, drawing closer, "so that we may make common purpose against our common foe. And of course, you must bring the Crystal Skull with you!"

"I would not venture into such a nest of vipers without it," Conan replied, "though in the old days I would have trusted my sword arm to see me through any perils…"

"And yet now you are old, and tired," she said with a cryptical smile.

"Not so old nor so tired that I could not snap your neck like a twig, were I of a mind to do so!" replied Conan ominously. "I warn you now, woman – wife or no, you have kept far too many secrets from me to trust you any longer. It is against my code of honour to harm a woman, but in the direst need. Yet if you betray me, I'll deal with you as I would with any other foe – let our daughter be raised by your besotted fop of a brother in your absence!"

"And if you betray me," she replied with a smile, "not all the hells between us shall spare you from the wrath of Kuthlan – or mine own!"

"Greater foes than you have spoken direr threats, and yet today they are but dust," shot back Conan. "And besides, I'll not worry about Kuthlan as long as I have the Crystal Skull by my side. I know little of such things, but I deem some spark of the long dead mage you spoke of dwells still within – for it has a mind of its own, showing its power when it will, and hiding it when it will. Not blindly does it serve the will of Kuthlan!"

"We she see," she smiled again. "Rest then while you can, husband. For tomorrow we shall depart this palace and this city before the crack of dawn, leaving behind even your most trusted guardsmen, and travel alone to visit the Cult of Kuthlan by the shores of the Western Sea. No others would they admit to their sanctuary, on pain of death, nor would any of the dogs of Xlantlantaca wish to set foot within a hundred leagues of his altar, nor would the men of my own Mayapani folk dare to do so. You may leave instructions by your own hand and seal for my brother to sit as Regent on the Dragon Throne in your place, and to care for and instruct Huitzilipochtli, while we are gone."

"He will be aggrieved to hear such a burden has been thrust upon him, no doubt," replied Conan sourly, "for since he hung up his spear and bow upon our victory at the Battle of the Reeds long ago, he has done little but drink and revel with whores while dressing more gaudily than a woman."

"Then he will be a ruler after your own image," she shot back, sliding swiftly out of Conan's bedchamber and towards the doors to the outer halls beyond. "Sleep well then, my husband! For you shall need all your strength tomorrow, and I shall awake you myself before dawn!"

"Backstabbing slut," whispered Conan under his breath, as she departed beyond earshot. "Hard to believe our young daughter, who looks as pure as gold, could be the spawn of a black-hearted witch! But no doubt she'll be safe in Tlaloch's care – he's good for a babysitter, if nothing else."

Taking another long draught of cactus liquor, and disregarding his evening meal, and for the time being his written instructions for appointment of Tlaloch as regent in his absence, Conan sank back upon his bed to catch such fitful hours of sleep as he could before his dark and secret journey to the acolytes of the Cult of Kuthlan began on the morrow.

An


	7. The Dreaming God Speaks

The sun was climbing into the eastern sky, its rays casting pale beams upon the stony, pine-clad slopes of the mountains west of Xlantlantaca, as Conan and Huitzil trudged along the narrow path. The air was cool and thin, almost with an edge of frost, for it was late in the year – though mayhap there was more frost between the Cimmerian and his bride, neither of whom had any more trust or love for the other after the events of the prior night. Theirs was an alliance of convenience now.

"Did you leave your sealed commands to my brother?" she asked, pausing briefly to take a pull of water from her leathern flask.

"Aye, I did, just after I woke up this morning," grunted Conan in reply, resting his weight on his staff, bearing as ever by the Crystal Skull, as clear and quiet as it had been for many years now.

"Though I had a devil of a time remembering how to write in the pictograms of this land. But be that as it may, Tlaloch rules as regent in my place, and as guardian to our daughter. We'll see if the citizens of Xlantlantca let him keep his head on his shoulders in my absence. I'm sure General Xipe fancies himself a better regent!"

"My brother is not such a fool as you think," replied Huitzil, replacing the cap of carved bone on her flask which she slung over the shoulder of her short azure blouse and dress, and resuming her trudging up the hill. "If nothing else, he values his hard-won comforts too much to lose them easily."

"We shall see," replied Conan with a shrug, keeping pace with her in spite of his much longer stride. "I had greater trouble convincing my bodyguard not to follow me, for they swore to do so in spite of my commands when they heard I planned to journey to the shores of the Western Sea alone – or almost alone. Some relic of their faith in the Feathered Serpent, no doubt – their living god must be protected at all times, and suchlike foolishness. I asked them how they thought they could protect me if the Crystal Skull couldn't, but none of them had an answer of course. Then they left me alone, with much ritual weeping as the strange habit amongst men of this land – I cannot stomach it myself – and they left me on my way."

"Old habits die hard," she replied with a trace of a smile.

"Indeed," replied Conan. "Here we are, talking as husband and wife, when neither of us even sees any meaning to those titles anymore. Or at least I do not, having married a witch."

"This will be a long journey if you do not mind your manners," she replied, showing no visible reaction to his barb. "And longer still if I go on at length over how much I regret marrying an ignorant drunken fool, as would most wives faced with such a husband."

"It would be less long of a journey if I snapped your neck as you deserve, and let the Crystal Skull lead me to this temple of yours, or wherever we are going," replied Conan, though his tone was half in jest, and half with menace.

"Do so, if you wish," replied Huitzil with a shrug. "Most likely I will die soon anyway, as will all men thanks to your stupidity, unless our Cult can find a way to save us from what you have done."

"If that's how you feel," replied Conan, picking up his pace, "then I think I won't oblige you. A more deserved fate for you is to have share my fine company, day in, day out, for who knows who many long moons before the end."

Huitzil swore quietly under her breath, and then fell silent. Conan, sensing she was tired of their game, likewise ceased his banter and continued to stride up the slopes with the long, measured tread of a Cimmerian hillman that eats up the miles, while his more diminutive wife followed in his wake.

Some weeks passed uneventfully, passing from one small hill village to another. Each of the inhabitants of these miserable hovels of mud-brick huts was in awe at the sight of Conan, who aside from his regal traveling garb of brightly coloured feathers and pieces of gold and jade woven into his wool tunic, was as recognizable by his stature and his volcanic blue eyes as by the infamous totem he carried on his staff. They would fall to the ground and worship Conan, who in spite of his long years on the Dragon Throne felt embarrassment and their grovelling obeisance, only for Huitzil to whisper in his ear, again and again, "Imagine how they would greet you if they knew the truth of what you have done to them!" And again and again, Conan would restrain his simmering anger with her, and say nothing in reply.

At length they left the pine-clad slopes behind them, and descended into the flat, arid lands that girdled the Western Sea in those parts. It was here that the direct rule of the Feathered Serpent had, until Conan's time, faded before that of the mysterious folk of Quechaloc, who even this far north of the vast southern continent that was their homeland maintained a presence along the coast. Since Conan's spectacular coronation during the Battle of the Reeds over eleven years before, those Quechalnti who dwelt by the western shores of Mayapan were at least nominally Conan's willing subjects, if only by virtue of his possession of the Crystal Skull.

As the setting Sun sank into the west, Conan and Huitzil could hear the sea from afar, crashing against the rocky shore in monotonous rhythm as it had since the dawn of time. Somehow the sound was vaguely menacing, a feeling that surprised Conan who after all was no stranger to the ocean in spite of his origins in the landlocked Cimmerian hill country. Hutzil was from a people who had long feared and shunned the sea – and yet her dark eyes glittered in the fading light as every step they took led them closer to the font of the cult to which she had long since given up her soul.

At length, they arrived by the shore, its ochre cliffs tumbling unevenly into the darkening sea, while beyond the crimson disk of the Sun hung as if from a thread over the western horizon, throwing up fantastic hues of indigo and tangerine against the tattered clouds as it died its nightly death in a blaze of glory. Then it was gone, and the ebon cloak of night closed in swiftly about them.

"Shall we camp here for the night, then?" grunted Conan, adjusting the heavily-laden traveler's pack which he had slung over his broad shoulders. "I've no idea where this cult of yours is, but at my age I've no desire to stumble forward in the dark."

"Or stumble into a trap from which you can't easily escape in the dark," she teased.

"I'm sure this fellow will take care of any treachery on the part of your inbred clan of fish-worshippers," replied Conan, waving his staff expansively, though the Crystal Skull lay dormant as it had for many long moons.

"Mayhap," she shrugged, ignoring his blasphemous insult. "But we are almost at our destination now. I would not quit so close to our goal, not when every day that passes brings us one day closer to the expiry of your accursed pact."

Conan was about to reply, when to his surprise the Crystal Skull began to glow with a pale inner light. "It seems the Skull has chosen for you," Huitzil said with a smile.

"Crom!" replied Conan, who could never become used to the strange and unpredictable powers displayed by the talisman that had sent his remarkable career onto such an unexpected path. His heart still forbore his entering into a lair of the Cult of Kuthlan in the dark, but over time Conan had learned against his better judgment to trust the actions of the Crystal Skull, which thus far had not led him astray. Without further word, he strode forward along the cliffs, following an inward prompting as to the path to take.

"It is not far now," whispered Hutzil as she strode behind him in the gathering gloom. "I know the way by rote memory as taught to me by my Sisters, now that we are hear. Soon we will come upon a narrow ravine down which heads a path. Follow the path, and we will make our way to the doorway we seek, cut into the living rock."

Conan grunted wordlessly, and continued his steady stride, his hillman's sure tread serving him well even on an unfamiliar path with only a single unnatural light to guide his way. And after the passage of a perhaps a quarter turn of the glass, the barren ground opened up before him into a narrow gulch or ravine, just as Huitzil had said. His keen eyes soon caught the path, leading its way down into the ravine and it seemed towards the sea below, though a lesser man might not have noticed it even in broad daylight.

"Down we go, it seems," said Conan. "And a perfect place for an ambush too."

"No doubt you are expected," said Huitzil, "but I will stake my life there is no ambush. You have only friends here – or, at least allies."

"I begin to doubt I have either n this accursed land," replied Conan, who swiftly strode towards the beginning of the path, and then began to tread carefully down its twisting course into the ravine, Hutzil close on his heels.

The crashing of waves against rock, endless and monotonous, which Conan had of course heard clearly if from afar since before he came in sight of the sea, was greatly amplified in this narrow, rocky place. Again and again crashed the waves against the shore, and to Conan the sound was both oddly menacing and almost hypnotic.

Conan's every sense was on alert for a trap, and yet just as Huitzil had said it seemed no trap awaited them – or, at least, none in the valley. Conan paused for a moment to take stock of his surroundings, but saw nothing beyond the narrow light cast by the Crystal Skull other than the dark walls of the ravine, and the narrow passage beyond where it opened onto the sea, now almost ebon black beneath a deep indigo sky. Conan glanced upward for a moment at the stars, and yet in this lonely place they did not seem familiar or reassuring to him, but alien and indifferent to the fate of man. A cool wind surged up from the sea, and Conan shivered involuntarily.

"It is not much farther now," urged Huitzil, her voice barely audible above a whisper amid the crashes and echoes of the waves. "Now is not the time to lose your nerve."

"Remind me again why I haven't killed you, now that you've lead me to this cult of yours?" replied Conan, with a bluff bravado that belied his grim thoughts.

"Because you want me to lead you inside the gathering place, and not just to its doorway," replied Hutizil, with what Conan imagined was one of the mocking smiles she had showed him so often of late. "And no doubt you still enjoy the company of a beautiful woman, even in your dotage."

"I must be in my dotage not to cast you into the sea at once!" shot back Conan. "But enough talk."

A few minutes more, and Conan and Huitzil found themselves at the bottom of the path, which came to an abrupt end at the ravine's mouth, some fifty feet or so above the waves as it seemed in the dark. To his left, Conan saw a branch off the past led off the path and straight into a narrow crack in the rocky wall, its depths black as pitch.

"And you mean for us to go in there, in the dark?" gestured Conan with his staff. "Now I know I should not have listened to you, or the promptings of this glowing bauble of mine. Only a fool would enter into such a place in the dark of night, an he knew a hundred willing virgins awaited him at the other end."

"What a curious remark," replied Huitzil, "considering how many virgins have taken unwillingly this same path in the dark - or so I am told."

Conan ignored the shiver down his spine, his attention caught by the Crystal Skull. He had become so used to it over the past decade and more that he sometimes forgot how strange and fearsome it was in itself. Yet as he stared at it, he felt that it almost spoke wordlessly inside his mind, urging him onward in spite of all his instincts to the contrary.

"Devils be damned," cried Conan in a loud voice the echoed throughout the gulch. "Conan is here, Conan of Cimmeria, Conan of Aquilonia, Conan of the Isles, Conan the Feathered Serpent, God-King of Xlantlantaca, Quechaloc and Mayapan!"

There was no reply, but Conan felt now that a thousand unseen eyes watched him in the dark. Even so, his mood was much improved, and he was doubly satisfied by Huitzil's silence – for once she seemed at a loss for words.

Conan spoke no more, but strode swiftly down the branch off the path, striding up to the narrow gap in the rock face before coming to a firm stop just short of it. It was but a few inches wider and higher than Conan himself, but the light from the Crystal Skull shone far down the corridor that led deep, deep down into the rock, seemingly without end, surely far below the level of the sea.

"And you have never been inside before, you say?" asked Conan.

"I have never been to this place before, far from my homeland to south," she reminded him. "I told you that I knew the route by rumour and instruction by my Sisters. All members of the Sisterhood are taught the route, lest they have need of it someday. But, no man or woman comes here save by will of the Priests of Kuthlan. Surely though they will give you welcome."

"I feel not so," said Conan. "But now I see there is nothing to be gained by delay, for the arrival of daylight would make no difference down there. Let us go onward."

And without further word, they stepped over the threshold, Conan leading the way by the light of the Crystal Skull, with Huitzil close on his heels. Instantly, a chill crept down his spine, and his sense of foreboding increased tenfold once inside the narrow passageway, the living rock hemming in him on all sides.

After a score or so paces, the narrow passage widened slightly, the walls became smooth and polished, and the passage took a sharp turn downward – how far down, Conan could not see, even by the light of the Crystal Skull. The air became damp and cool, and scented with a strong incense masking a deeper, sickly-sweet smell of decay, which Conan found unsettling.

Down, down they descended into the passage, the Crystal Skull their only light in the otherwise unfathomable blackness. Conan wondered uneasily what would happen if the Skull was suddenly extinguished, leaving them in the dark in that grim place, and some part of him began to wonder if his treacherous wife had not led him into a trap.

Moreover, he had never _entirely_ trusted the Skull itself, a strange object beyond his ken and with a mind of its own, albeit that he owed the Dragon Throne of Xlantlantaca to its power. The Conan of old, he reflected, would never have entrusted his fate wholesale to some dark talisman of a bygone age. He began to wonder if he had taken leave of his senses, and was on the edge of his dotage now that he was past his seventieth year.

His instincts then snapped his mind back to the present, as at length the passage levelled out and became still broader, a doorway it seemed on the edge of his vision leading to a far larger chamber beyond.

"It appears we are almost there, at least at the uppermost chambers, from what lore I have learned," whispered Huitzil in his ear.

"I'll be damned if I descend into the lowermost chambers," Conan replied. "Any man who wishes to meet me can do so in yon chamber ahead of us, which at least appears large enough for more than two men to stand abreast.

"Far larger than that, if rumor be true," she said. "But you will soon see for yourself."

And with that they left the passage behind them, and entered into the broad chamber beyond.

At first, Conan could not see clearly beyond the sphere of light cast from the Skull. But then after a few moments, he began to see the outlines of a broad dome, with squat pillars supporting the base, and many passages leading off to who knew what dark places far from the light of the Sun. A stirring caught the corner of this eye, and then he knew they were not alone.

All about them, from the shadows, came forth dark robed figures, their faces veiled in shadow. For all her knowledge of the cult, Hutzil instinctively drew nearer to Conan, while Conan for his part felt a chill hand grip his spine, as had happened to him on so many occasions before when fate brought him into the presence of an ancient evil.

"Welcome, Conan of the Isles," intoned one of the dark ones in a deep, sonorous voice, his words uttered in the speech of Mayapan marred by the accent of the Quechalnti. "I will not utter your other names and titles here."

"Who are you?" asked Conan bluntly, always quick to drop the veneer of royal formality.

"I am no one," replied the man, who strode silently towards Conan along with his fellows, stopping some paces short. "Our names are long forgotten. But together we are the Priests of the Dreaming God, he who is dead and yet cannot die, and we have long awaited you."

"Then you know what I want, and why I am here?" asked Conan.

"Of course," replied the man, whose face remained veiled in shadow. "We have scryed you from afar, and have discerned your purpose."

"Then can you help me or not?" asked Conan.

"We can," replied the man. "But there is a price."

"Why am I not surprised?" asked Conan sourly, before turning to Huitzil. "You said nothing of any price, girl. If you have betrayed me…"

"There is always a price when dealing with any god, my outlander husband," replied Huitzil softly – Conan thought he heard a tremor in her voice. "Surely even you know that."

"Before we discuss the price," replied Conan, turning back to the man, "first you will tell me what you will do to help. How can I stop Kukulkan from…"

"Utter not his foul name here!" shrieked another of the veiled figures, and they all recoiled and hissed as the dim, clear light of the Crystal Skull grew brighter for a moment.

"Then how can I stop our enemy from taking yon bauble, this Crystal Skull for himself, as I have pledged to him he may do in some months' time hence in exchange for my place upon the Dragon Throne?"

"Such a pledge cannot be broken," replied the first man, who seemed to have regained his composure along with his fellows. "You must fulfil your oath, and you are powerless to break it."

"Then what help can you offer?" barked Conan angrily. "Have I come here for nothing, or to be mocked by your inbred clan of fish-worshippers?"

"Do not mock the Dreaming God!" cried the nameless man, his temper suddenly changed as his voice cracked with anger. The aura of menace from the priests of Kuthan was palpable, and yet Conan did not give an inch.

"I care not a jot for your god or your cult," replied Conan. "Tell me know how you will help me, if you can at all, or I will cast the Skull into the sea and have done with it. I am an old man doubtless soon to die in any event, and care little for my fate."

"Men have died screaming on the altars of Kuthlan for far less than the insult you have given," replied the priest. "You are foolish to mock him here in his temple amid these lands."

"Then take the Skull for yourself, if you can," replied Conan. "Or perhaps that is what you mean to do anyway? Mayhap you think you can keep it safe here in your cave."

"I have told you the bargain you made with our enemy must be fulfilled, you witless worm!" hissed the man. "You are indeed stupid, even for a barbarian outlander."

"Men have died screaming on my blade for far less than the insult you have offered me!" snarled Conan, his voice laden with menace. "You will talk now, or I will collect the skulls of you and all your lackeys and throw them into the sea, along with the Crystal Skull, and to hell with the lot of you!"

"Wisdom out of the mouths of babes!" replied the man, with another sudden change of tone, his voice now tinged with something close to amusement - if indeed there were any mirth to be had in that grim place.

"Will you speak to me in riddles all evening, or plainly!" demanded Conan, shifting his staff in his hands into a stance of combat.

"We implore your aid, O High Priest of Kuthlan!" intoned Huitzil solemnly. "As a member of the Sisterhood of the Kraken, I am willing to pay the price."

"Thank you, my child," replied the High Priest of Kuthlan – for so he was. "Had you intoned the proper formula earlier, I would have answered sooner."

Turning to Conan, he then said, "We know not the answer, which is known only to the Dreaming God himself. First the price must be paid, then he will offer you his aid – such is the way of the world."

"And I ask again, what is the price?" said Conan.

"Your lovely young bride knows the answer, do you not my dear?" asked the high priest, turning now to Huitzil again. "You must first confirm to us all that as a member of the Sisterhood, under no obligation to offer yourself against your will, yet you offer yourself freely to the Dreaming God?"

"I wait the embrace of the Dreaming God!" cried Huitzil, her voice tremulous now, and yet strong with purpose. "When he arises from his tomb, so shall I from mine, and so shall all those who sacrifice themselves for him, to revel and raven and delight in freedom and wonder and abandon forever and ever. _Ia Cuthulu!"_

" _Ia Cuthulu!"_ cried the priests, as high priest produced from his black robes a long, slender blade of bronze, clutched in a hoary and withered hand. Faster than the eye could see, the razor sharp blade slashed across her throat, letting out a crimson torrent of hot, steaming blood as her slender body crashed to the ground, stone dead!

Shocked beyond words, instinctively Conan raised up his staff to dash the out the brains of the High Priest – only to find his hand stayed and his body frozen like a statue as the Crystal Skull glowed brightly from within. He had never fully trusted it, for all the aid it had offered him over the years, and now it had chosen this time and place to betray him!

But the horror had only begun. For some moments, the tableau seemed frozen in time as the priests of Kuthlan hovered over the ruined form of Huitzil like vultures before a carcass as the blood drained from her slender body over the ebon floor in a scene from Hell itself, as it appeared to Conan's tortured mind.

Would that had been all, and the Cimmerian had fallen into merciful oblivion! But it was not to be. All time seemed frozen in that grim place, and yet the tableau was broken as the body of Huitzil began to move! Not in the natural, fluid motions of a living man or woman, but stiffly and jerkily, as if her body were a broken puppet moved by invisible strings. Slowly but surely, her body awkwardly lifted itself off the floor, its head thrown back at an unnatural angle as the red wound in its throat offset the pale, slack lips in a vile mockery of a smile, and then turned about awkwardly to face directly at Conan, who even now could not move his arms or legs an inch.

"Crom!" whispered Conan, a thousand centuries of his superstitious Cimmerian heritage freezing his soul in horror as Huitzil's dead, unfocused eyes suddenly shot open!

Despite the gash in her throat she then spoke in a voice not her own, infinitely deep, dark, cold, and resonant with ancient power and ancient evil:

 _"_ _Conan of Cimmeria!"_ said the voice. _"You have treated before with my rival, Set the Thrice-Accursed as he is known to you. Now you will treat with me!"_ Conan's blood turned to icewater as he realized that, through murder and foul necromancy, Kuthlan himself spoke to him through Huitzil's undead form!

 _"_ _My priests have told you that you must fulfil your bargain with Set,"_ continued the voice. _"This is true, and yet it is also not so. You must fulfil the form of the bargain, and yet not the substance. Through treachery and deceit, the favoured weapons of Set, you will cheat him of his due!"_

 _"_ _Far from this land, in the steaming swamps of the north, there is another place that is sacred to me,"_ continued Kuthlan. _"You will journey there, guided by the Crystal Skull which understands my words even as do you. In that place amid a circle of broken stones, you will find in an ancient grove a fountain of purest water that flows from a rock of pure crystal. Carved into this, an ancient mirror, a relic of another time long before the dawn of men. Stand before the mirror, and the solution will begin to reveal itself to you. For I foresee that Set shall both receive his due, and be cheated of it until the end of time!"_

 _"_ _Go now!"_ concluded the voice. _"And remember, there is nothing you can do or say that will not come to my knowledge in the fullness of time. My eyes are upon you. Do not forget!"_

Then Huitzil's eyes snapped shut, and her form dropped again to the ground – this time to remain there, still and quiet in the sleep of true death, which seemed to Conan's eyes a mercy after the horrors he had witnessed.

"The Dreaming God has spoken," intoned the High Priest calmly. "Leave this place now, and return to the world of the living. The Crystal Skull will guide you to the place you seek. Go now, for it is far from here, and the time runs short before your bargain with our enemy must be fulfilled!"

Conan felt life in his arms and legs once again. Every fibre of his being wished to slay the High Priest and his foul companions and avenge his wife, for all that she was a witch who had hidden her true self from him and doubtless many others, including her brother, for many years. And yet somehow a voice whispered in the back of his mind that the Crystal Skull, though for what reasons he could not fathom, would not allow him to take this revenge, not at least at this time and place.

Besides, had not Huitzil gone willingly, even joyfully to her death? He found it beyond comprehension, and began to wonder if he would ever truly understand this land and its people, all of whom seemed caught in a nightmare world beyond the ken of the men of Hyboria. Truly, for the first time since setting foot on the shores of Mayapan over eleven years before, Conan felt a stranger in a strange land on the edge of the world, where he did not belong. The first stirrings of longing for his true home, the Hyborian and kindred lands beyond the Eastern Sea, began to stir inside his troubled heart.

Wordlessly, Conan turned his back on that evil place and strode with purpose through the narrow passage, up, up towards the world of men. There was a light far ahead and above, and as the light from the Crystal Skull faded and then ceased entirely, Conan realized that he must have been in that terrible place of shadows for far longer than he had thought.

In due time Conan exited the narrow passage, and breathed deeply of the fresh, clean air as his eyes blinked in the bright sunlight, taking in the barren, rocky, ochre slopes of the narrow ravine, a ribbon of bright blue cloudless sky far above, and to his left the deep indigo of the Western Sea, its long, low waves crashing monotonously against the rocky shore in endless echoes. Yet to Conan, that sea was now a place of horror, for he knew that somewhere far beneath its vast waters was rumoured to dwell the dark god of the deeps through whose aid he sought to undo the substance of his ill-conceived bargain with his enemy of old, Set – with what wisdom, he did not yet know.

Moved by the depths of his horror and despair at all that he had witnessed, forsaken by all men as it seemed to him in that lonely place, he cried out in a harsh and pitiless voice that echoed up and down the valley and over the waves of the Western Sea beyond:

"I curse and renounce this land and all who dwell herein! I curse it, and the faithless witch who called herself my wife, and all her kin - yea, even my daughter of her own loins and mine! No witch's brood and heir to the cold black blood of a witch is any true child of mine! Would that my true heir, Conn, could hear me and come to my aid, and I to his, though all the long leagues of the Eastern Sea and the lands on both its shores lie between us!"

Feeling no better for his angry screed, Conan tightened the strings of his traveller's pack, turned his back on that strangest of all seas, and trod swiftly up the footpath toward the head of the ravine - there to begin his journey towards the vast and mysterious lands that lay to the north of Mayapan. With only the Crystal Skull as his dubious guide, it seemed fate had left him no choice but to seek out the mysterious fountain and mirror spoken of by the avatar of Kuthlan, to whatever end awaited him.


	8. The Coils of the Serpent

On the golden and bejeweled throne of Belverus, capital of the ancient and exalted realm of Nemedia, heartland of the Hyborian world, King Archivaius IX, though barely more than a stripling in years, stared through the strands of his long brown hair with narrowed green eyes and deep suspicion at the tall, slender, shaven-headed ebon-robed form who stood before him and his assembled courtiers. The King's purple-tuniced and golden scale-mail armoured royal guards, never more than a few feet from his side, fingered their pikes and halberds nervously has they glared at the outlander before them.

"Our noble and illustrious land is known to be tolerant of faiths and philosophies other than those of Mitra, Lord of Light, whose orthodoxies are more rigorously enforced by our narrow-minded neighbours in Aquilonia to the west," quoth the youthful King in a loud but cultured voice that echoed clearly across the vast, marble-pillared hall. "But I tell you in truth, it does not please me to see a Stygian Priest of Set stand openly before my throne, nor I dare say does it raise my standing with my court that you do so. You strain my tolerance in coming here before me today."

"Would it have strained your tolerance less if I had appeared unannounced in your private chambers in the night?" replied the shaven-headed acolyte of Set with a grim smile. "For such was in my power to do. But I have come here openly and before your court, as a show of good faith from our Stygian King, whose ambassador I am, and his priesthood. I am grateful for your generosity in seeing me so, and on such short notice."

"Pleasantries be damned, in your case," replied the King, to the murmur of the assembled courtiers at this breach of protocol before a foreign ambassador – even one from the dark and dreaded realm of Stygia, far to the south. "What does you King want of me, if it may be spoken of openly?"

"Some of it may be spoken openly, and the rest in private," replied the Stygian ambassador, his copper-skinned face and dark eyes impassive despite the slight inflicted on him. "Stygia wishes no secret to be made that is wishes friendship and alliance with Nemedia, pivot of the Hyborian realms, against their common foe Aquilonia, and its usurper King."

Now there were open gasps from amongst the assembled throng, not to mention the hurried departure of a few of its members – no doubt to immediately inform the agents of the Aquilonian King in Belverus of this unsettling development, in exchange for a handsome reward in gold.

Restraining his surprise not only that such an alliance against a powerful foe would be offered, but that the offer would be made in open court, Archivaius chose his words carefully.

"We all know the current King of Aquilonia, Conan II, is not a legitimate occupant of the Lion Throne of that ancient and illustrious realm," replied the King with a shrug. "Nemedia's position in this regard is of course no secret to anyone. As every man knows, Conan II, or Conn as his courtiers often call him, is the second of a line of usurpers; his father Conan I, a Cimmerian mercenary, his mother Zenobia I regret to say it a Nemedian whore, and not a trace of royal or even noble blood in his veins. Years ago my grandfather tried to set things right in open war against the usurper King Conan I, who had murdered the legitimate Aquilonian King Numedides with his bare hands as he sat upon the Lion Throne! And yet as the whole world knows, our venture ended in failure and was at terrible cost to our realm, with the power of Aquilonia greater than ever and ours a shadow of its former self. Our noble realm of Nemedia has but recently begun to regain its strength and power of old."

"All the more reason for you to form an alliance with a powerful nation against a common foe," replied the Stygian ambassador with a smile.

"And yet who is the common foe?" shot back the King. "For your nation has been an enemy to all nations of the Hyborian race since the long-lost days of thrice-accursed Acheron, and your god has been the enemy of ours since time immemorial!"

"I did not come here to convert the worshippers of Mitra to the worship of Set," demurred the ambassador. "Has a single Nemedian soldier fallen to a Stygian blade or arrow in living memory? Of course not, as we all know. And yet despite your youth your Majesty must know, if only from your tutors in the annals of your thrice-renowned realm, how many Nemedian villages were shorn of all their healthy young men-at-arms thanks to the blades and bows of your Aquilonian cousins in the days of Conan the Usurper! And you yourself, Your Majesty, have just attested to the crippling blow dealt to Nemedia by Aquilonia but a generation ago. Surely it is clear to all present which nation is the real enemy of your own?"

There was a murmur amongst the assembled throng, at the truth of the Stygian's words. The King remained silent for some moments, weighing the chance to deal a blow to his Aquilonian foes against his well-founded distrust of the dark and hoary realm of Stygia. Silently he cursed the Stygian for making his approach in public, deliberately forcing the issue in front of his court in a way that would inevitably draw the ire of the Aquilonian King – as no doubt was intended by the sly and subtle Stygian.

"Such matters will not be discussed in public further," replied the King with a haughty tone. "If you wish a private audience, make the arrangements through my lord chamberlain. You are dismissed."

"As His Majesty commands," replied the Stygian with a sardonic smile, as he bowed low and then turned with a flourish of his long black robes to make his exit from the chamber, while a whirl of gossip echoed from one end of the vast hall to the other.

Less than two weeks later, in a cool, marble-walled chamber of far-off Tarantia, the sprawling capital of Aquilonia, young King Conn held his own private audience before the most trusted members of his own court seated about his broad, round council table of smoothly polished white marble – and he was far from pleased.

"How long am I to tolerate these insults!" quoth Conn, his light brown eyes - mirroring those of his late mother rather than his father - flashing with rage. "First I am almost murdered by an agent of Set, which amounts to agent of thrice-accursed Stygia; now I hear that Stygia proposes alliance with Nemedia in open court at Belverus, and the Nemedian king does not at once decline him! Has the world gone mad, or have the gods turned their back on us, that all our foes are in league?"

"It is disgusting that a Stygian ambassador was even admitted into the Nemedian court, and doubly so that he was not at once executed for proposing that worshippers of Mitra should align with those of Set!" cried one of the councillors, the young Prince of Poitain in the south of Aquilonia, dressed in an elaborate gown of crimson wool threaded in elegant patterns with cloth of gold.

"It is a blasphemy against Mitra!" proclaimed another, a dark-bearded man of middling years dressed in the plain white robes of one of Mitra's priests.

Conn was silent for some minutes. Much had changed in Aquilonia since his father's disappearance into the West nigh on a dozen years before, to combat the plague of the red shadows. Of those of his father's old friends and councillors who had survived the assault of the red shadows at court, not one was yet alive; all had succumbed to the grasping hand of old age. Thus not one of the old generation who has seen his father into power and supported his claim to the throne, through thick and thin and with their own reputations on the line, yet lived. A new breed now filled the halls of court and the castles and palaces of the nobility. Most of them owed nothing to Conn - and some of them, he knew, imagined themselves as having a stronger claim to the Lion Throne than did he.

"Your Majesty, I bring far graver news," said one of the men present, a man of indeterminate age and dark, leathern-faced complexion who wore plain traveler's clothes of black and brown linen cloth – quite out of keeping with the others. He went by the name of Nemalirus, though on account of his profession even Conn did not know his real name. In appearance a traveler, he was in truth a spy.

"My sources in the Nemedian capital," he continued, "tell me that their young King did in fact meet with the Stygian ambassador after the public audience behind closed doors. What happened behind those doors I know not; but shortly after the Stygian departed, the King issued orders to his generals to mobilize his army!"

The room at once erupted in a storm of fury and indignation at this news. Conn raised his hands to silence them, and then turned to Nemalirus.

"So Archivaius means war then?" asked Conn. "I would have thought the Nemedians had learned their lesson the last time they sought war with Aquilonia."

"Is His Majesty taken by surprise?" asked one of the nobles, Parlius, Baron of Lor in the east of Aquilonia; he was a young man draped in robes of crimson silk, his brown curled locks scented with oil of rosewater. "I would have thought His Majesty had special insight into the irreligious and perfidious character of the Nemedians, being half of Nemedian blood himself."

There was silence as the other nobles stared uneasily between Parlius and the King. His eyes flashing, Conn replied in a strained voice, "Mention my ancestry with disdain again, my lord, and I will collect your flapping tongue myself."

"My liege," replied Parlius as he stood to his feet with a ritual gesture of apologetic bow and flourish. He then resumed his seat, his soft features marred it seemed by the slightest trace of a sneer.

"By your leave, my lord, there is more," continued Nemalirus, "for you have not heard the worst. Our spies from Koth and Shem, who have their own leads in dark Stygia, report that the Stygian army also readies itself for war! They prepare a vast assault, against whom it is not known."

"And yet we can guess," replied Conn sourly, "for we receive tribute from Argos and Zingara along the cost, and Koth and Ophir inland. Am I then to believe the unthinkable; that Nemedia has made alliance with Stygia, the ancient enemy of all Hyborian lands, simply to avenge itself against Aquilonia?"

Cries of outrage sounded throughout the room at the very thought of such blasphemy; even Parlius of Lor appeared genuinely offended.

"My liege," replied Salutius, an aging bear of a man wearing steel armour draped in a black tunic bearing the the white lion emblem of Aquilonia, a bejeweled chain of gold about his neck; one of the highest-ranking generals of the realm. "If this news be true," he continued, "and I have no cause to doubt the word of good Nemalirus here, then our realm is in grave peril of invasion on all fronts. If Nemedia moves against us from the east, and Stygia moves against us and our vassal states from the south, we will be forced to withdraw our armies from the barbarian frontiers in order to throw them against our Nemedian and Stygian foes. But then, we will soon face raids or worse from the Picts to the west and, er, the Cimmerians to the north."

"You need not feel embarrassed to mention the Cimmerians in my presence," replied Conn evenly. "I am not their King."

Turning to his other councillors, Conn stated, "My lords, it is plain we have no choice but to mobilize our own armies at once, and to call up our own reserves. And yet I cannot believe all of this is a coincidence, or a sudden move on the part of our foes. Everything that transpires reeks of a conspiracy long in the making. Though I have no doubt that the source of this conspiracy lies in the vile realm of Stygia, that nest of evil snake-worshippers; for all their ideals of religious tolerance, the Nemedians surely would never have conceived the idea of aligning themselves with the Stygians, even tactically."

"There is more than mortal scheming at work here, my liege," said Olivaiant, High Priest of Mitra in the Aquilonian realm, a hoary, grey-bearded figure gowned in robes of plain white wool, as was the other priest present, but also crowned with a wreath of laurel. He was by far the oldest man in the room though he had but recently attained his position as hierophant after the demise of his even more ancient predecessor, the High Priest of King Conan I's time.

"The world is but a chessboard, and men are but the pieces on the board, be they kings or pawns," continued Olivaiant, his voice cracked and weary, but his grey eyes and furrowed brow laden with wisdom. "The real players are behind the scenes, beyond the sight of ordinary men. And behind all of these manoeuvres and politicking, I deem we see at work the scaly claws of Set the Thrice-Accursed, false god of darkness and the void. Stygia cares not a farthing for Nemedia; they merely use its vengeful and idiot boy-king as their pawn. And what Stygia seeks is surely nothing less than overthrowing Aquilonia, bulwark of the West, as the first phase of overthrowing all Hyborian realms and all those who worship Mitra, Lord of Light. Once again they seek to establish a dark Stygian empire to further the control of the followers of Set over all the lands of their long-lost sister realm of Acheron, upon whose smoking ruins the foundations of the Hyborian realms were laid in the days of our forefathers!"

A grim silence filled the room, as none doubted the truth of the words of the High Priest.

"Your words are dark," quoth Conn, "but for my part I do not believe we men are merely pawns. There may be greater powers behind the scenes, but we are masters of our own fates; so my father believed, and if any man's life is truth of that belief it is his. Let the gods do what they will; we must take matters into our own hands. I will not stand idly by and wait for invasion to come to us on all fronts. Salutius, you are to take command of the mobilization of our armies and muster of our reserves. As soon as all is ready, we will strike the first blow! Archivaius will soon learn there is a high price to be paid for tweaking the tail of the Lion Throne."

"As for our Stygian foes, in the first instance we shall use our vassals against them! Tell Argos and Zingara that Aqulonia will pay a bounty of a hundred gold pieces for every Stygian ship proven sunk by their efforts, in any waters anywhere, from this time forth! The rumour alone shall unleash a horde of pirates and privateers from every port in Argos and Zingara, aye and the Barachan Isles too, hell bent on sending every Stygian galley and scow to the bottom! Their greed for gold will soon overcome their fear of the snake crawlers. Aye, and while we are at it, Salutius, inform our own officers and men that ten-thousand gold pieces shall be paid for the sack of black Khemi, Stygia's greatest port-city, by our own troops, and another ten-thousand apiece for the head of the Stygian puppet-king and the High Priest of Set who rules the realm through him! Aye, and another ten-thousand each for the sack of Belverus, and yet another ten-thousand for the head of Archivaius himself!"

Half those present gave a resounding cheer to the King's bold commands, while the other half gasped in horror at his transgression of so many laws of gods and men.

"My liege, how can you give such orders?" demanded Parlius, his soft lower lip quivering with indignation. "Is the Crown of Aquilonia to treat with pirates, the lowest of all scum? Are we to offer gold for the head of your brother Hyborian King as if he were a common bandit? Civilized peoples do not behave in this way. Nay, I deem you protest too much! You seek to distract us from your own blood links to our Nemedian foes, by unleashing outrages upon them fit only for a Cimmerian savage!"

"I'll show you a Cimmerian savage!" snarled Conn as, like panther unleashed by a coiled spring, he shot out of his council chair straight at Parlius! Quicker than the eye could see, he drew his bejewelled dagger and slashed at the foppish nobleman's soft ivory throat, which yielded like a knife though butter, sending a fountain of hot scarlet blood soaring into the air!

As the foolish noble gurgled in his death agonies, his crimson blood blotted up by his crimson robes, he crashed heavily to the marble floor. The others present gasped in shock at this explosive display of violence in council, but wisely stayed their tongues as Conn turned his eyes upon them, seeming for a moment the very image of his celebrated - and much feared - father.

"My father took the Lion Throne by strength of his own swordarm, and those of his loyal followers!" cried Conn, brandishing his blood-stained dagger. "And by Mitra himself, aye and by Crom and Ymir too as my father would have sworn, I will exact the price for my Crown in the blood of all my foes, within Aquilonia and without! Let one more of my subjects ever insult me or disobey my commands again, and he shall meet the fate of yon worthless dog! Aquilonia is in a state of war, against Nemedia and Stygia, East and South, and the discipline of a camp of war shall prevail in this realm from this time forth! Or does anyone else here dare to insult me, or usurp my authority, or question my commands as King?"

The silence that met his questions was answer enough.

"This council has ended," quoth Conn, laying his bloodied dagger on the council table. "Go now, and fulfil my commands, in righteous might through to ultimate victory! For Mitra and the Lion Throne!"

"For Mitra and the Lion Throne!" cried those assembled, givng the proper formula in reply before they exited the council chamber, whatever their private thoughts might be.


	9. The Clouds Break into Storm

"Is that the night's entertainment ended, then?" quoth Tlaloc, half to himself, as he took another draught of cactus wine from an elaborately carved obsidian cup and gazed upon the naked, exhausted forms of the several concubines he had taken for his nightly pleasure. Receiving silence for an answer, he drained his cup, and then crashed down on his soft cushions, his head spinning as his body felt carried by invisible hands onto a warm, soft cushion of air.

Thus had he spent every night since the departure of his sister and brother-in-law – to all others, the King and Queen. Since the rapid elevation in his fortunes nigh on a dozen years before, he had taken with ease to the luxuries and diversions which offered themselves to him at every turn – luxuries and diversions which, beyond the simple act of coupling, were far beyond his imagination when he was a clean-limbed youth living in a small village in the high mountain forests of southern Mayapan. If nothing else, the Xantlantacans had perfected the arts of pleasure during their long years of bondage to Kukulkan, as if in compensation for the blood-curdling sacrifices he had demanded until Conan had put an end to them, soon after taking the throne for himself. Now the sacrifices were gone, but the pleasures remained – an agreeable situation, as it seemed to Tlaloc.

He had heard nothing of his brother or sister since their strange departure some weeks before, silencing the astonished and fearful courtiers, who seemingly were unable to imagine the sudden departure of the Feathered Serpent on an unknown errand, by proving his seal of office in his new role as regent in the King's absence. Conan and Huitzil had not explained their purpose, but Tlaloc had learned better than to question Conan's judgment – he had no doubt they would return, sooner or later, and probably with no more explanation than when they had left given how taciturn Conan had been of late. He would have to see if he could pry the truth from his sister instead.

His young niece, Huitzilipochtili, was still but a young girl who had not yet felt the first stirrings of womanhood, and so offered him nothing in the way of company or conversation – he had left her entirely to the care of her nursemaids at court. With no visible enemies within our without to Conan's new empire, uniting Xlantlantacans, Mayapani, and Quechalnti under one ruler, the bureaucracy of the court running on its own good time as it always had, and his old friends amongst the Mayapani distanced from him now by his own royal rank, there had been nothing for Tlaloc to do another than take his sensual indulgences to new levels – which he had done and with gusto.

As Tlaloc sank deeper into slumber, these fleeting thoughts soon faded into the dull haze of deeper sleep, and like all sleepers he fell into the shadowy realm between life and death, matter and spirit, time and eternity. A vague stirring in the void caused Tlaloc to regain some level of awareness, yet in his dream state he began to wish it had not – for he soon found himself in the icy grip of fear, as all before him faded into a blackness, darker than the darkest night.

Panicking now, wondering if he had slipped beyond the bounds of life into the night-black realm of the netherworld as the wages to be paid for overindulgence in all sensual pleasures, Tlaloc tried to will himself to wake up, and find himself once again in the land of the living. But it was not to be. Instead, a dim, ruddy glow appeared before him, which in time took the form of a large fire streaming forth from a heavy brazier, carved out of some metal unknown to him. The fire cast shadows about, revealing him to be in vast hall, seemingly without limit, of heavy stone pillars reaching upward into the void, though rooted in a floor of massive slaps of crudely cut stone.

Fearing now that he was indeed in the Halls of Judgment, to which the spirits of all Mayapani were fated to arrive upon their deaths, Tlaloc awaited the arrival of the fearsome demons who were the guardians of the netherworld, and who informed the departed of the judgment of Kukulkan upon them before leading them either to an eternity of response in the sombre gardens of twilight, or of torment in the caves of the forgotten. Or so the Mayapani at least believed.

Hours passed as it seemed in that place, timeless as it was, and yet Tlaloc found himself rooted to the spot and still utterly alone. But then, two fires glowing with an angry crimson glare appeared in the darkness beyond the flames. Tlaloc's soul froze with horror as he realized they were two lidless eyes, their baleful gaze fixed squarely upon him.

Then there was a shifting and writhing in the darkness, and Tlaloc screamed aloud as he saw the true form of the being before him – a giant serpent, its scales carved of ebon, its fangs dripping with steaming venom, and its crimson-eyed stare beyond all endurance. It seemed to sprout vast dark wings from its slithering form, which unfolded themselves almost to envelop him, though their substance seemed insubstantial when compared to the hard scales that covered its writhing coils.

"Silence, mortal!" boomed the serpent in a deep, powerful voice that echoed into infinity. "Cease mewling like a timid mouse, even if that is what you are. Know you not that you stand in the present of your god, Kukulkan?"

Tlaloc found himself unable to move or speak, and it seemed only the dark will of Kukulkan kept him from dying a second death in his terror.

"Cease your thoughts of death," continued Kulkulkan, whom it seemed could read Tlaloc's mind with ease. "You stand not in the netherworld – at least, not in _your_ netherworld. You are in my own halls, where none dwelleth but myself. And I have summoned you here, not to suffer your own judgment, up to enact my judgment upon the world of the living!"

"I am yours to command, O Great Kulkulkan," Tlaloc found himself saying in reply, his voice strained and hoarse, though in fact he had never enthusiastically worshiped that dark god even in his early youth, when all Mayapani were forced to pay tribute to him.

"You will bring my judgment against the thrice-accursed traitor, Conan of the Isles!" intoned Kukulkan, his crimson eyes narrowing into slits of flame. "I gave him my ultimate reward for mortal men, ascension to the Dragon Throne, the throne of the Feathered Serpent, to rule over all the lands of Mayapan. And yet he has betrayed me most foully!"

"Do, do you refer to his cessation of the sacrifices, my lord?" asked Tlaloc in a quaking voice.

"That is but an insult to me, and the outward form of his inward treason," hissed Kukulkan in reply. "His treason runs to far deeper roots. For he has not only ceased the sacrifices which are my due, endangering the faith of mortal men in my power; he has betrayed me further by braking his sacred pact with me, for which I granted him his power and his rule. And worst of all, he has made alliance with my most vile enemy, the demon God of the Deeps, whose name I shall not hear uttered in these halls!"

"I, I know of whom you speak," answered Tlaloc – all Mayapani knew that the Quechalnti worshipped the drowned and dreaming god Kuthlan. "But what is this pact which my…which Conan broke?"

"That is no concern of yours, mortal!" replied Set, his wings enfolding more closely about Tlaloc, who quavered before him. "Kulkulkan need explain himself to no man. What I require from you is to enact my vengeance, and in the manner that I command. And beyond my commands, you have your own good motives to seek vengeance against Conan; for he has betrayed your own dear sister, Huitzil, to her death!"

"My sister?" gasped Tlaloc, his fear turning to shock. "What say you, my lord? My own Huitzil lies dead?"

"Aye, she is dead," replied Kukulkan, a shiver passing through his scaled and winged form. "Betrayed by Conan, sacrificed by him to the evil, lying priests of the Drowned God, in exchange for their aid against me!"

His mind reeling, Tlaloc found himself unable to believe what Kukulkan had told him – even though the source of the words was a god, and he was but a mortal man. "O great one" stammered Tlaloc, "How could Conan have done such a thing? And why? She was his wife as well as my sister, and the mother of their child!"

"The ambition of men knows no bounds," demurred Kulkulkan, "and some men will betray all, even those nearest and dearest to them, to satiate their desire for limitless power. Such a one is Conan! He risked death and destruction to you and your tribe years ago, by defying the tribunes of Xlantlantaca when they sought the annual sacrifice from your village. Again he risked the lives of you and your menfolk in open war against me my servants, the Xlantlantacans, into which he lead you by false and cloying words when you never would have defied me of your own volition. All so that he could gain a throne for himself!"

"In spite of all," continued Kukulkan, "I made a pact with him, to restore peace and prosperity to my people, and yet he repaid me by ending the sacrifices which are my due, and all that I have asked in exchange for the blessings of land and plenty that I have bestowed on your folk and those of Xlantlantca since time immemorial. And this he did simply to prove his own power, and pose as a god over your people in his own right! Can it surprise you now that he would betray even his wife, your own dear sister, in furtherance of his limitless ambitions?"

As Tlaloc pondered Kukulkan's words, a strange calm came over his mind as if suddenly and for the first time, he could see Conan as he truly was – a barbarian outlander and usurper who served no one but himself, and cared for nothing other than himself. Was not his sudden abdication of his responsibilities as king, but a few weeks before, further proof of the man's real nature?

"And though my own word should suffice for you, mortal," continued Kukulkan, "there is proof enough of my words in your own material plane, waiting for you to uncover it! For the remains of your own poor sister lie in the recesses of the cultist's lair of my nemesis, by the shores of the Western Sea, to whose doorway I can easily give you direction by guiding you through your own second sight. Take a detachment of warriors to that accursed spot, and you will find what remains of your sister, yet with no trace remaining of Conan himself – for his has fled that evil place, now that his use for her is at an end."

The gnawing conviction that every word spoken by Kulkulkan was true now formed in Tlaloc's mind, and he began to feel the first traces of black anger towards Conan stirring in his heart.

"And should I find my sister's body there, my lord," asked Tlaloc, his voice clearer and calmer than before, "what then shall I do?""

"Slay the cultists who sacrificed her," replied Kukulkan, "and all Quechanlti who stand in your way. Then seek Conan himself! For I can see him from afar, and lead you to him once you have seen the truth of my words for yourself, and are motivated not merely by your fear of me, but by your own healthy desire for revenge!"

"And when I do find him?" asked Tlaloc, less certainly.

"You will slay him, and then taken from his dead hands the Crystal Skull. Then when I deem the time to be right, you will deliver the Skull to me! In exchange, I will make you the Feathered Serpent, king of all Mayapan, in Conan's place, and pledge that your own heirs shall sit upon the throne in perpetuity!"

"But, my lord," replied Tlaloc, again uncertainly, "how am I to stand against the power of the Crystal Skull? With it Conan has the power of a god himself!"

"A false god, an imposter!" hissed Kukulkan, his eyes flashing as Tlaloc again quavered before him. "But much must be risked in war. Do you what you must, even if you must raise the whole army of Xlantlantca against him! Do not stop until you hold Conan's head in one hand, and the Crystal Skull in the other! Then your own throne will be your own reward – and you will deserve it infinitely more than the wretch who holds it now!"

"I will seek out my sister as you command, my lord," replied Tlaloc with all sincerity. "And if I find her as you say, I will not stop until Conan lies dead, and the Crystal Skull is delivered up to you when you command! And my own throne…"

"Shall be your reward," acknowledged Kukulkan. "Such is my pact you with mortal, and Kukulkan always honours his pacts to the last degree. Now go, and do not fail me!"

There was a sudden clap of thunder, and Tlaloc found himself wide awake and standing naked in his chamber, as the light of day streamed in through the narrow open windows, illuminating the scene of debauchery which appeared unchanged from the night before.

"Out, out you damned whores!" shouted Tlaloc, full of purpose, kicking one of them as she stirred fitfully in her drugged slumber. "Guards! Attend to me at once!"

Within moments several Eagle and Jaguar warriors streamed into his chamber, ignoring his nakedness and that of his consorts, their faces grim as always. "Command us, my lord!" cried the tallest of them, a scar-faced Jaguar warrior armed with a wooden club edged with jagged obsidian – he was duty-bound to obey Tlaloc's commands as Regent of the Feathered Serpent, just as he would those of the Feathered Serpent himself.

"Get these whores out of here, and fetch me food and drink, at once," replied Tlaloc, "and then arm and equip me for combat. You and a hundred other elite warriors, armed and equipped for a journey of several weeks will accompany me this very day on a mission of the highest importance! I shall disclose its purpose to you when we arrive at our destination. Surely shall not be gone more than several weeks' time, so no need to appoint a vice-regent in my absence from the city."

"At once my liege!" replied the man. As they fell to their orders, Tlaloc turned to one of the windows, facing west, and commanding a broad view over the city and towards the pine-covered hills that marked the western rim of the broad valley in which it lay.

"My dear sister," said Tlaloc, half to himself, "if you lie dead by the hand of the one we both trusted with our lives and fates, then I swear by all the gods you will be avenged!" Turning his glance back inside his chamber, towards his dazed concubines as they were ushered from the room by the harsh cries of his coolly efficient warriors, he whispered half to himself, with a trace of a smile, "and if a throne is into the bargain, so much the better!"

Some days later, Tlaloc and his-five score warriors, all marching on foot as the warriors of that land had always done having no steeds at their disposal, found themselves on the barren flatlands west of the hills that skirted the Western Ocean in those parts. The morning waxed hot under a bright blue sky and a fierce sun, but in spite of the fine weather the mood of Tlaloc and his men was grim, though in the case of the latter clouded by confusion as to their purpose.

"If I may, my lord," said one of Tlaloc's officers, an Eagle warrior, "though we have held sway over these lands these past ten years and more, still we should double our watchfulness in the plains. These are still lands claimed by the Quechalnti, and they never disarmed their forces when they accepted the suzerainty of our Feathered Serpent, our Emperor Conan. They may well view our presence here, armed and unannounced, as a provocation."

"All the more in these parts particularly," said another man, an aging Jaguar warrior. "There are long-standing rumours that this is an evil place, and somewhere near the shore lies a cult centre of those sea-devil worshippers."

"I am pleased to hear it," replied Tlaloc, puffing slightly as he reflected on how much his physical condition and lithe form had deteriorated after over a decade of drinking and whoring. Maintaining a resolute expression on his face, he continued, "That evil place, wherever exactly it may be in these parts, is precisely our objective! I have my own reasons for seeking it out, which you shall learn soon enough."

"My lord," replied the Eagle warrior, an expression of unease on his hawklike swarthy features, "do you mean to despoil one of the accursed cult sites of he who is not to be named? Kukulkan shall surely show favour to you if you do – and yet, all the same, the army of Xlantalaca has long refrained from so doing, even in the old days, for fear of stirring up open war with the Quechalnti. There are not only a strange and evil folk, but a powerful folk as well, with their weapons and armour made out of their unholy metal. We know not how to work metal save in gold and copper, and yet their blades cut through our own obsidian ones as if they were dry reeds. Has our liege Conan…"

"Ask not what Conan thinks or commands!" shot back Tlaloc, his voice heavy with genuine anger now. "He has purposes of his own it seems, and I am in command in his absence. You will obey my orders as if they were those of Kukulkan himself!"

"As you command, my lord," replied the Eagle warrior, though he and the Jaguar warrior exchanged dark glances at each other while wisely remaining silent.

The day wore on until, at length, Tlaloc and his warriors found themselves by the steep ochre cliffs of the Western Ocean, whose deep indigo waters rolled on endlessly towards the far horizon, where a few trace clouds were beginning to stain crimson with the light of the setting sun, now a huge, scarlet orb as it hung suspended as it seemed just above the sea. But the beauty of the scene was lost on Tlaloc and his men; all of them had for generations learned to fear that strangest of all seas, and the dark, dreaming god whom legend said dwelt therein. Tlaloc himself had never seen this sea before in his whole life from its shore, though he had many times glimpsed it from afar from the mountains of his highland home in the narrow reaches of the far south of Mayapan. The dull echo of the waves crashing monotonously against the rocky shore seemed almost sinister in its unchanging rhythm, as if it were the heartbeat of Kuthlan himself.

"Shall we make camp now, my lord?" asked the Eagle warrior of Tlaloc. "And double our watch this night, in this strange place to which our folk of Xlantlantca rarely venture?"

"It is not nighttime yet," replied Tlaloc. "Before we pitch camp, first send out runners within three leagues in all directions along the coast. I want reports of trails, tracks, anything to show where a shrine of the sea-devil might lie along the shore of these parts."

"Then it is as we thought…er, I mean, as you command, my lord," replied the Eagle warrior, before turning and barking orders to several Ocelot warriors, all trained scouts, who fanned out quickly in both directions along the cost, jogging along on the roughed soles of their bare feet.

Some time passed as Tlaloc and his remaining warriors stood silently by the edge of the cliff, leaning their weight on their spears as the sun sank lower and lower into the west, staining the sky with crimson and vermillion before it died its nightly death. Twilight came rapidly, and the first bright stars appeared in the gloaming when one of the runners returned.

"My lord," said he, an Ocelot warrior, "I think I've found something. A narrow trail, heading down a gully, leading to a cleft in the rocks by the end. Even in this light I can see it is well-travelled, indeed most recently within the last few days I would reckon."

"Interesting," mused Tlaloc. "Though it could be many things – are you sure it's not just the cave home of some primitive fishing tribe?"

"Yet no tracks run to the sea, my lord," replied the scout. "No boats, no docks either."

"And heard you any sounds, saw you any lights in this cave or crack of yours?" asked Tlaloc.

"No lights, my lord," replied the scout. "Sounds I could not tell, for the echoes of the waves crashing against the shore almost deafened me."

"Then perhaps we have found what we seek," replied Tlaloc. "At least I deem it worthy of full exploration. Guardsmen!" he cried, turning to the others. "Five of you – yes, you five by my right - shall remain here to gather up our other scouts as they return. The rest shall accompany this scout and myself – for darkness or no, I shall find out this night if we are near the object of our quest! If it is a false lead, then we will return to this spot to make camp for the night, and continue our search in the morning."

"As you command, my lord!" cried the assembled men, rapidly falling into marching formation behind Tlaloc, who in turn followed the scout as he retraced his steps. In spite of the gathering gloom he did so effortlessly, gathering the fruits of his years of careful training in his role to follow trails and tracks by night as easily as by day.

It was fully dark and under a moonless sky before Tlaloc and his men reached the edge of the ravine. Not all of the warriors were as adept and marching in darkness as the scout, and several of them had already tripped and jostled each other even over the level ground that led to its edge.

"My lord," said the Eagle warrior, "I ask you to reconsider your plan, and not venture into yon chasm until the morrow. Surely whatever errand summons us here can wait a few more hours! To descend down there, in the dark, defies all sense. We could be walking into an ambush, and yet not see…"

"Do you question my authority?" replied Tlaloc coolly. "Or is it that you lack faith in Kukulkan?"

"Neither, my lord," replied the man with a slight stammer. "But if you insist on going ahead, at least may we light our torches? If we walk into a trap, better that we can see something than be as blind as bats"

"You are of course right," acknowledged Tlaloc, who realized that his desperate desire to learn his sister's fate had clouded his judgment. "But I still wish to keep such advantages as the dark provides to us, namely cover for our advance, just as it seems the echoes of the waves in that narrow place will stifle the sounds of our trampling feet. We will light the torches before entry into the mouth of this cave or crack, if it indeed seems worth entering."

"As you command, my lord," replied the Eagle warrior, seemingly relieved that he had persuaded his master not to enter what might well be a cult place of the sea-devil worshippers in pitch blackness as he had seemed determined to do.

Without further word, the scout led the way forward, Tlaloc and his men following carefully behind. The trail was narrow, and yet well-trodden enough that then men could find their footing even in the dark, proceeding slowly and with care. The waves of the sea crashed and echoed ever more loudly against the shore, drowning out the sounds of their footsteps just as Tlaloc had predicted. The sea itself was midnight black, as were the walls of the gorge, with only the stars far above casting their feeble light into the all-encompassing dark to remind them that they still walked in the waking world of men.

At length they arrived at the base of the trail, and the scout found the crack in the rocks by feeling along with his hands. "This is it, my lord," said the scout, "barely wide enough for a man to enter. We will have to go through single-file, if that is your command."

"It is," replied Tlaloc grimly. "But first, light the torches."

This command was carried out within some minutes, until the torches provided the only cheerful light amid the gloom. At a signal from Tlaloc, the scout entered first, followed by the main body of the men, while he brought up the rear.

The passage went sharply downhill, narrow and cramped, the torchlights casting bizarre shadows off the elaborate headgear of the warriors. The air became dank and close, but in spite of their attempt at silence the passage echoed loudly with the muffled footfalls of over a hundred pairs of leather-soled feet.

In time the passage straightened out, gradually becoming wider, and as it did so the sense of menace in the air increased palpably, as if unseen eyes watched them from every corner where a torch failed to cast its light.

In time the passageway opened out into a large, domed chamber, which they entered cautiously though it seemed devoid of any occupants. There was a heavy, oppressive scent in the air, almost sickly sweet.

"What now, my lord?" asked the scout. "We are easy targets for an ambush in these grim halls, if they be tenanted at all. What are we searching for, if I may ask plainly?"

Tlaloc was silent for some moments, and then responded, "I will tell you plainly, now that we are put to it. We search for my dear sister, your Queen, who I fear may have met her end in this grim place!"

There were sharp exclamations from the men present, which echoed loudly throughout the grim chamber, and down the many other passageways that seemed to lead out of it amid the gloom into a subterranean labyrinth of vast size and, perhaps, unspeakable age.

"But how can such a thing be? Why would you even suspect it?" demanded the Eagle warrior, who after Tlaloc was senior in rank to all of the men present. "The Feathered Serpent would never permit such a thing, no matter what private errand he and his queen were on. The power of Kukulkan, by whose grace he is invested with his rank, and the power of the Crystal Skull which serves it seems his kingly will, surely would both combine to prevent such a catastrophe!"

"You may accuse me of blasphemy if you wish, however subtly," replied Tlaloc cooly, "but you need not take my word for it. I want this place searched, now, top to bottom, for any sign of my sister. If she is not here, or if she is alive and unharmed, my suspicions may be unfounded, and unless we hear more from the other scouts I sent out along the coast earlier this evening I will admit my error and we may all return to Xlantlantaca. But if there is any sign that she is here and has been harmed, or worse, then … we shall see where the facts lead us."

"I hear and obey, my lord," replied the Eagle warrior, reciting the formula that was standard in response to such an order - though his black eyes scowled suspiciously at Tlaloc, whom from his own private standpoint was a Mayapani outlander elevated to a high station far beyond his capabilities or desserts.

The warriors then fanned out into the broad chambers, while Tlaloc remained near the entrance. Their footfalls echoed loudly in the chamber, which seemed designed to make all sounds seem louder than they were, and the sense of menace in the air increased tenfold as the pressed further into the gloom.

Suddenly several sharp cries rang out, as the warriors began dropping right and left, thin darts dipped in green ichor piercing their flesh where it was bare!

"Ambush!" cried Tlaloc, as instantly the surviving warriors huddled into a defensive formation, those on the perimeter holding up their hide-covered wood-framed shields while the rest deployed their spears or clubs at the ready as the torches used up the spare hands they would need for slings and arrows. A blur of motion amid the shadows cast by the torchlight caught their eye, and they sent forth a volley of spears, which unleashed screams and cries of pain and rage in return from their unknown assailants.

"Rush them now, while they are off balance!" commanded Tlaloc, brandishing his spear as his warriors obeyed his command in battle without question, regardless of their private opinions concerning him.

It took only seconds for the warriors to dash across the length of the chamber, crashing straight into those of their assailants who still lived, as well as the freshly-slain bodies of their fellows. Struggling desperately in the dark against their half-seen foes, more cries and curses rang out as pierced, gutted and brained combatants ended each other's lives in a vicious, hand to hand combat.

But then just as suddenly as the storm arrived, it had passed; Tlaloc had lost a score of warriors, but the rest yet lived, and had taken several lean and lanky black-robed figures captive, their long arms bound firmly behind their backs, spearpoints at their throats.

"You dare to defile the temple of Kuthlan!" hissed one of the black-robed and cowled figures, his unseen eyes fixed on Tlaloc. "Insolent dog! You and your dust-crawling serpent worshippers shall all suffer torments unimaginable…"

"Kill that one!" replied Tlaloc coolly - and so it was done with a sudden thrust of a spear to the throat that caused the wretch to slump to the floor, blood and air gurgling out of the wound as his dark spirit departed his ruined frame for the lowest hells.

"Three of you captives yet live," continued Tlaloc, "though I need but one to answer my question. And my question is this – where is my sister, Huitzil, the Queen of Mayapan and Xlantlantca? For I have reason to believe she came to this accursed place, and by the gods I had best find her alive and unharmed, or it is you scum who shall suffer torments unspeakable!"

His blood then turned cold, as all three of the black-robed figures let out a hideous wheezing sound which he recognized as laughter. One of them then shook back his cowl with a jerk of his head, and stared Tlaloc squarely in the face with his ark-rimmed, fevered eyes that stood beneath a bald-shaven plate in an aged visage so gaunt as to be skeletal.

"So did your precious hummingbird visit out temple, my strutting little Quetzal!" he laughed. "Yet never was she known truly to you, your own brother – yes, we know well enough who you are, Tlaloc the drunkard! Your sister was claimed by us in spirit long ago, and lately she willingly turned herself over to us in body as well, to use as we pleased to the greater glory of Kuthlan! _Ia Rl'yeh!_ And all this in the sight and with the full knowledge of your great king, your Feathered Serpent, your Conan of the Isles, who witnessed without word as we slit her throat and drained her life's blood into a steaming copper bowl to invoke the spirit of great Kuthlan himself!"

Gasps of horror and disbelief issued forth from the warriors of Xlantlantaca, their spearpoints wavering unsteadily, though Tlaloc stood still and silent as a statue – for after all, the cruel words he had just heard were what he had been led to expect, by the spirit of Kukulkan himself, in his vision of some days before. Yet even then, he was not so naïve as to take the words of a priest of Kuthlan as the truth.

"I trust not your words, sea-devil," replied Tlaloc, his hoarse voice revealing his inner struggle against his desire to tear the man's tongue out by its roots. "Show me her body if what you say is true, or I will know you for a liar."

"I care not what you think, nor whether I live or die in the service of Kuthlan," shrugged the priest. "But I will lead you to her all the same, if only for the joy of striking black sorrow in your heart before I pass on to my reward!"

"My lord, do not listen to his lies!" replied the Eagle warrior, the same who had questioned Tlaloc but some minutes before. "This dog seeks to slander our lord and master, the Feathered Serpent, and deny the power of our god Kukulkan, who would never permit his earthly avatar to shame himself so! This filth merely seeks to stir up dissension within our ranks!"

"We shall see what we shall see," replied Tlaloc. "You and a score of your warriors shall company me, and this fiend our captive also, while he leads us to my sister's body – or to another ambush, as the case may be. The rest shall wait here, and hold these other two as our living captives – I may yet have need of them, if I have cause to slay this one."

"As my lord commands," replied the Eagle warrior, with some effort, as if he could barely bring himself to assent to Tlaloc's commands. The other warriors mutter darkly amongst themselves, though their years of discipline prevented them from openly questioning Tlaloc when their own lieutenant remained subordinate to his will.

Bound with his hands behind his back, and an obsidian dagger held meaningfully near his throat, the black-clad priest of Kuthlan then nodded wordlessly to his captors, in the direction of one of the dark corridors that led out of the chamber.

Wordlessly they crept down the stone-flagged corridor, which soon became dank and close, and it seemed to the men that they must have passed below the level of the sea, so much moisture clung to the walls and hung in the air. The air soon became foul with a stench that unmistakably was not just that of damp or mildew, but that the sickly-sweet odor of rotten flesh.

In time the men were led into another domed chamber, smaller than the first, but built of the same design, and with yet more dark corridors radiating off of it to who knew what destination – truly this foul place seemed an endless hive of darkness and corruption. But in the centre of this room lay a deep pit, full to the brim with dead bodies in varying states of decomposition, from polished-clean dismembered skeletons to stiff, bloated corpses, and all manner of horrors in between.

Then men stared at this grim scene for some moments, unmoved it seems – for none of them save Tlaloc were strangers to the grim scenes of sacrifice at the black pyramids of Kukulkan in Xlantlantca itself. But then Tlaloc gave out a cry of horror and despair at the site of one of the pale, bloated forms – bearing over its rotten wrist a bracelet of rare turquoise and pure silver which he knew to have belonged to his beloved sister, whom he now knew was truly dead.

"Huitzil!" he screamed, and his cry was taken up by his men, in a ritual show of grief, as they realized the grim truth.

"Yes, yes!" cackled the priest of Kuthlan. "And your lord Conan looked on, and did nothing! Perhaps Kukulkan approves of your sister's sacrifice to Kuthlan?"

"Son of a whore!" screamed Tlaloc, striking the man so hard in the face that several aged and rotten teeth went flying in a stream of split and blood. "But you will know what it is to taste the blade of sacrifice yourself! You and your two fellows up above will all die under my own blade on the altar of the Black Pyramid of Xlantlantaca, in renewal of the sacrifices to Kukulkan, and your dark spirits shall be devoured by Kukulkan himself in the netherworld!"

"Never!" cried the priest, though now his voice trembled with rage mixed with fear. "You dare defile the priesthood of Kuthlan, and mock his power in his own abode? By all the dark gods, if you mock Kuthlan in this way it shall be war between the Quechalnti and Xlantlantca, aye and all the Mayapani, and war between Kuthlan and your foul lord Kukulkan as well!"

"Silence that impudent knave!" bellowed Tlaloc, and his command was instantly carried out with a heavy blow to the head of the priest from a club carried by one of the Jaguar warriors. Then Tlaloc turned to two others, and said, "Take up my sister's body from yon pile at once, be it rotten or no! We shall bind her form up above, in the clean air, with whatever robes and rags we have at hand, and bear her back to Xlantlantca, for a clean and honest cremation amid full funereal rites, and burial of her ashes with all honours in the Gardens of Eternal Rest. And as for this dog and his fellows, aye, they shall be sacrificed at the Black Pyramid of Xlantlantaca as I have commanded!"

"But my lord," replied the Eagle warrior hesitantly, "The sacrifice was abolished by our lord Conan, the Feathered Serpent himself – although…"

"Can you still speak Conan's name without spitting on the ground!" cried Tlaloc, waxing wroth. "Traitor! Thrice-accursed foul blasphemer I name him! No true Feathered Serpent is he! For by some dark witchcraft I know not, he used his Crystal Skull, that foul bauble from the Western Sea, no doubt infused with the power of Kuthlan, to usurp the rightful place of the true Feathered Serpent, whom most lately was that red-haired giant from parts unknown of whom you have all told. No earthly avatar of Kukulkan is he! For would a true Feathered Serpent lead my sister to this place, as cannot be doubted he did – for all know of their departure on a secret mission towards these shores some weeks ago – and then leave her thus, to be sacrificed to a sea devil?"

The men began to murmur darkly amongst themselves, as the truth of Tlaloc's words – or so it seemed to their ears – rung home.

"And where is Conan's body amongst that grim pile, if he himself was also victim?" cried Tlaloc. "Nowhere, because he led my sister, his own wife and mother of his child, my dear niece Huitzilipochtli, to this dark place, under who knows what false pretenses, to die an unspeakable death at the hands of our enemies to gain who knows what advantage or favour for himself!

"Foul, monstrous traitor, vile outlander from beyond the seas, he has been an agent of Kuthlan from the beginning!" cursed Tlaloc, his eyes wild with the glint of madness. "I curse the day he ever set foot in our poor humble village, nigh on a dozen years ago, bringing false promises of power and riches, aye of hope for more besidess. All is now turned to ash in our mouths, and misery and ruin have followed in his wake! I curse my own folly that I ever rebelled against the faith of Kukulkan, harsh and demanding as it may seem, listening to the sweet words that flowed from his honeyed tongue! Now I have suffered the penalty in extreme for my own faithlessness, in the loss of my only beloved sister!"

"Aye, I share your sentiments, and begin to fear your words are true," whispered the Eagle warrior gravely. "But how can Kukulkan have permitted this to happen? Has he lost all power before that accursed Crystal Skull, and his great rival Kuthlan?"

"Blaspheme not!" replied Tlaloc, more calmly now, though tears yet streamed down his copper-skinned face. "Who can know the ways of the gods? I deem this but a test, to sort out Kukulkan's true followers, even those who have stayed from the path for a time, from those who are utterly faithless and accursed. Woe betide those who fail the test, for without any doubt they shall suffer Kukulkan's wrath, indeed as I have done, and more besides, suffer a punishment too grim and terrible for mortal men to imagine!" The men present murmured in assent at these words, eager to prove themselves as true servants to their god.

"And who shall serve as Feathered Serpent, anointed by Kukulkan, if Conan has betrayed us?" asked the Ocelot scout, his lips and voice trembling with indignation at this outrage to proud Xlantlantaca and its supreme deity.

"I shall claim the title for myself!" asserted Tlaloc boldly. "For I reveal to you now, yes even in this grim abode of our archenemies, that Kukulkan himself appear to me, in dream or vision, and revealed all!" The men gasped at these words, for it was death to utter such claims of direct communion with Kukulkan, unless the speaker was true. "Aye, he revealed all, and even then I tested his words, seeking hard proof, the same which has now been provided to my own bitter regret!"

"I shall claim the title at the next festival of Kukulkan on the old calendar of Xlantlantca, the harvest festival, before all the masses of the city, and if my words be true then Kukulkan shall anoint me his earthly avatar before all, as he has ever done from the foundation of the city!" declared Tlaloc, his dark eyes gleaming now in mixed pride and ambition. "And should he anoint me so, then I shall begin the sacrifices anew! With my own hand and obsidian blade shall I make these foul dogs of Kuthlan the first sacrifices on the summit of the black pyramid – and then I shall reinstate the sacrificial priesthood and all of its rites! The whole accursed nation of the Quechalnti shall be taken in sacrifice to our god, in their hundreds of thousands, for such is their just deserts for following foul Kuthlan, and such is our just revenge against that dark god of the sea for his mockery of our faith!"

The men cheered as one, their hearts fired up by Tlaloc's speech – for, truth to tell, the cessation of the sacrifices had never sat well with any of the folk of Xlantlantca, even as it had been welcomed by those of the Mayapani, who had of old been chiefly its victims. Now that a new race, the hated Quechanltni, had been slated for sacrifice, root, stock and branch by their provisional lord, their lust for sacrifice was kindled anew, though it meant most bloody war along the length and breadth of Mayapan to the bitter end.

"Let us then bring word of this news to our fellows!" cried the Eagle warrior in a stern and commanding voice. "They shall soon see reason as have we. We shall return to Xlantlantca with these three sacrifices in tow. Aye and we shall rekindle the blaze of our ardor for Kukulkan, as our lord Tlaloc has promised, and no doubt we shall soon witness his anointing as Feathered Serpent by our god as well!"

"And what of the old Feathered Serpent, of Conan of the Isles?" enquired the Ocelot scout, spitting on the dank floor as he spoke the now hated name.

"First, these dogs of Kuthlan I shall sacrifice immediately on our return to Xlantlantaca," replied Tlaloc. "Then the greater part of our forces shall I unleash forthwith, in relentless war against our hated foes the Quechalnti, to gain sacrifices by the hundreds and by the thousands to atone for our having forsaken Kukulkan!"

"And yet Conan shall I not forget," continued Tlaloc hotly. "Full ten-thousand men shall I employ, tasked solely with seeking him out, wherever shall he be, so that he may be dragged hand and foot to the black pyramid of Xlantlantca, to have his own living heart torn out by mine own hand, and his black soul committed to the hell it deserves!"

"Yet his Crystal Skull…" said the Ocelot scout, with a trace of hesitation, fearful lest he appear lacking in faith before his fellows.

"Speak not to me of the Crystal Skull!" replied Tlaloc, with a dismissive wave of his slender arm. "Do you set so little stock on Kukulkan's power? Much must be risked in war, but I have no doubt that in the moment of truth, that foul bauble shall be revealed as powerless before our god, even should Kukulkan himself have to descend from the skies to put an end to its evil!"

Then men gave a lusty cheer, and then turned about on their long march toward the surface to set the world afire, as Tlaloc, his face no longer soaked with tears, turned his lips with the trace of a smile as he reflected that at least the deep wound of his sorrow might soon be soothed by the balm of power and glory to his name.


	10. The Grey Mere

"Crom and Mitra, and all the devils too, this place be damned!" cried Conan as, for the thousandth time that day, his long legs sank into the mud of the endless swamp through which he journeyed, towards a destination but dimly guessed at.

Many weeks had passed since his grim meeting with the foul priests of Kuthlan, and his witness to the fate of the witch who had passed as his wife and mother of his only daughter Huitzilipochtli - who was now far away in Xlantlantca, under the care of her lazy drunkard of an uncle and a retinue of servants, to face who knew what fate in his absence. But to her fate and with a hard heart he turned no further care, having renounced her as the spawn of a witch, just as his own kinfolk of the grim Cimmerian hills would have done with any child they suspected to be tainted with witch's blood.

Besides Conan had greater concerns, since not for first time the fate of the world itself hung on his broad shoulders, stooped as they were with advancing age. For more than three-score years and ten and had Conan trod the earth beneath his sandled feet, and yet never on a journey of greater import than this – all thanks to a foolish bargain made in throes of an ambition that was perhaps unseemly in a man of his many years, who had already reached the limit of earthly accomplishments.

He was alone, and had eaten up well over a thousand miles with his hillman's tread, always led steadily north and east by an inward longing or sense of direction which, he suspected, came from the Crystal Skull itself, which had never ceased to glow dimly, day and night, since he had left the temple of Kuthlan shaken to the core by what he had seen. Sere deserts he had crossed, finding springs of water and snaring the odd hare or game bird here and there; and then grim barren mountains, and broad grassy plains beyond, until at length he had arrived at the edge of vast swamplands, ancient and hoary and seemingly without limit.

Still led on by his inner promptings, he had waded through the murky foetid water of the swamps for days, the huge, twisted trees draped in moss which had been scattered here and there near their edges like grim fingers pointing in warning growing ever thicker the farther in he came. Now they were everywhere, their bark dank and rotten, crawling with snakes, bugs and other vermin while blocking out the light of the soon in a gloomy, perpetual twilight. Not a living man had Conan seen since he entered the swamps, as even the scattered tribes of naked savages who dwelt in the plains to the west, and who had fled in terror at Conan's approach with one glance at the dimly glowing Crystal Skull, did not seem to ever dare venture into the forsaken swamplands.

Evil shadows passed Conan by in the gloom, and vast ripples moved through the sluggish water now and again, as if some titan beast slithered just beneath the surface and ought of sight. Conan had no doubt this land was haunted and accursed, and with no clean water to drink other than from such rain as there was, nor any clean food to eat, so that his stores ran dangerously low and even his great strength and endurance began to flag, harried by the advancing shadow of old age.

And yet no evil thing dared show its ravening face to him, and he had no doubt why; the Crystal Skull, his blessing and curse for well nigh a dozen years now, harbored a power far greater than that of any of the horrors which dwelt in the swamplands, sensed and feared by all the evil creatures therein. They would no more have attacked Conan than great Kuthlan himself, were he to stride the world again beneath his writhing, tentacled feet.

At length, one day when the dull twilight began to fade towards ebon night, and Conan again prepared to rest his weary limbs on some such patch of drier ground as he might find, Conan saw a dark, solid bulk ahead of him, its form broken and unclear amid the shadows and the twisted trees. At first he thought some foul creature had marked him as its prey at last, and he prepared to stand his ground; but then he realized that his fears had betrayed his senses, for no living thing stood before him.

Rather he recognized the outline of some great ruin, its cyclopean blocks hoary and broken with age, and yet still taking the shape of what had once been a vast stone circle, built by unknown hands in who knew what antediluvian age. His superstitious heritage whispered to him that such massive blocks of stone – in the middle of vast swamplands with no stone to be seen in any direction for many days of marches – were not reared by the hand of man, and he felt an icy hand grip his spine in fear. At the same moment, he was certain that he had finally reached his destination; the cryptical temple in the northlands to which the foul Avatar of Kuthlan had led him.

Proceeding with caution, all thoughts of rest and sleep suddenly banished from his mind, Conan pushed forward into the gloom, which was soon relieved by the growing light from the Crystal Skull. After some four-score paces Conan found himself at the rim of the ancient structure, at least a quarter-mile in span as it seemed amid the gloom and the trees. Its vast, broken blocks of heavy basalt were hurled hither and yon as if they were the toys of a childish, angry god, although Conan had acquired enough lore over the course of his long years to know that more likely whatever structure had once stood here had been devastated by some cataclysmic event of nature in the distant past.

The gurgling sound of a trickle of water and a flash of light from somewhere amid the dark trees that filled the ruins caught Conan's attention, and he advanced toward it even more warily than before. At length, between the trunks of two huge, knotted, ancient trees that seemed hardly less old than the ruins themselves, he saw something quite out of keeping with the rest of the ruins; a block of purest crystal, some two paces square, craved with bizarre and fantastical designs at oblique angles which could never have been conceived by the mind of man. From its highest point a small jet of clear water poured forth ceaselessly, trickling down through the channels carved into the crystal into the foetid waters of the swamp. On one face of the block part of the surface was not carved at all, but plain and polished like a mirror, and Conan realized that the flash of light he had seen was merely the reflection of the light from the Crystal Skull in its smooth surface.

As her stared into the mirror, he saw a dim reflection of his own face, and his heart sank as he noted the greying beard and lines of care that marked it. Only the deep, volcanic blue eyes set into that leathern and haggard face bore any resemblance to the Conan of Cimmeria of old, when he had been in the prime of his youth and proudly trod the kingdoms of far-distant Hyboria beneath his sandled feet.

After some time had passed, Conan saw his reflection become dim and blurry, as if a fog had passed over the mirror – though there was no fog about at this hour of the day. His features shifted subtly, his volcanic blue eyes darkened to a light brown, and his long grey hair darkened and his beard faded away to reveal the smooth, youthful face beneath. Enthralled, he realized he had seen this face before, and knew none better - though when last he had seen it, it was younger and but the face of a boy. Now it was the face of a young man, and Conan called out to him by name.

"Conn!" he cried. "By Crom and Mitra, what strange sorcery is this?"

"Father!" cried the young man, his face now blank with shock, the voice echoing inside Conan's mind rather than in is ears. "Is it you? Nay, it cannot be. Surely this is but a dream!"

"It is no dream on my part, my son, but some dark magic at work. But where are you now? In the palace?"

"A better question is where are you?" replied Conn, a look of disbelief still showing on his youthful face. "I am in my tent in our camps. I had but cast my gaze at the small looking glass on my dressing table, when I saw you staring back at me – aged and strangely garbed as you are. Yet still I do not believe my eyes even now, for it is over a dozen years since you left this realm, in pursuit of the plague of the red shadows from beyond the Western Ocean. The plague stopped suddenly, and your success was clear. I had hoped to see you soon again! But you were gone for good it seemed and all those in our realm, not least me, now believe you long dead. And still I cannot believe myself you are truly speaking to me by means of some strange magic, unless you be but a shade from the netherworld?"

"I am no shade, at least not yet, but still a flesh and blood man as are you!" replied Conan gravely. "And on the farthest shores of the Western Ocean I have seen sights and marvels and many strange lands beyond your imagining!" he continued. "But I cannot believe it is mere coincidence that I speak to you now, as I stare into this strange stone in a place of ancient power. Nor do I know how long our bond shall last, before we fade from each other's sight and hearing. So tell me quickly, what are these camps you speak of? Is Aquilonia at war?"

"Aye, it is," replied Conn, his marvel fading at this strange speech with his father as the worries of his position weighed once again upon his troubled mind. "We are at war with Nemedia and Stygia both, in open alliance with each other against my rule and our realm of Aquilonia!"

"Alliance between Nemedia, a Hyborian realm, and Stygia?" gasped Conan, his blood running cold. "By Crom and Ymir, this is no coincidence at all. The scaly claws of Set are at work on both sides of the sundering seas!"

"I know not what you mean," replied Conn, "though all the realms are in shock at what has happened. And yet in spite of this, many faithless and accursed Brythunian and Corinthian mercenaries have sworn to fight for Nemedia, aye and many sellswords from wicked Zamora as well, and many eastern Shemetish mercenaries have likewise sold their swords to Stygia, along with many Kushites and allied tribes of the Black Kingdoms of the hazy South. Zingara and Argos send troops to our aid, and Ophir and Koth as well. Yet soon we shall be hard put to it as we face battle and invasion on both our southern and eastern fronts, even as we must maintain sufficient forces on our western and northern borders to hold off the Pictish savages and my wild Cimmerian kinsmen, lest we face invasion from all sides!"

"Aye," acknowledged Conan, "to take advantage of Aquilonia's weakness would be the first thought for hungry raiders from Cimmeria – well I know it, for I have done so myself when I was younger than you! And those Pictish dogs would do the same. I am sorry to hear you find yourself in such a sorry fix as king since my departure from the land."

"Do not blame yourself, father!" replied Conn, more calmly now. "You gave your crown to me and left this land to save our realm and all Hyborian lands from a strange doom, and in that you succeeded. It is not your fault that vengeful Nemedia now aligns with the evil Stygian realm against the mightiest power of the West."

"I wish that were true," replied Conan grimly, "though I fear I am more at fault than you know, although not by design. It would take a dozen years to tell you the tale itself in full, and yet it is by my own folly that you find yourself in this pass, and aye the whole world is in peril on my account. For foolishly and lead by my own blind ambition, unquenched even in the twilight of my years, I made a pact with Set. Now the world may pay the price for it!"

"A pact with Set?" cried Conn, his face twisted with dismay. "Nay, surely that cannot be true. I doubt now whether you are in truth my father, or an evil spirit sent to trouble me when already many troubles weigh upon my mind."

"I am your father in truth!" barked Conan angrily. "Must I prove it to you in this dark hour? Why I remember that time when you were ten summers old, and in front of the entire court your trousers came undone of a sudden when a loose button fell off, and…"

"Enough!" cried Conn, whose face flashed red even as his voice showed his relief. "I regret my hasty words. But if you are in truth my father and not at least a dream, by what folly could you have made a pact with Set?"

"It seemed not so foolish at the time," replied Conan. "But now I have set out to undo what I have done, while there is yet time. The hour is late, for the term of the bargain was a dozen years, and now that time is near upon us."

"Then perhaps that does explain the strange alliance against Aquilonia in some way, though still I know not how," replied Conn doubtfully. "But if you be flesh and blood as you say, then I will tell you what you must do – come home across the sea, if you can! For no one needs your aid and counsel more than I, and moreover it would bring me joy beyond measure to see you alive in the flesh again, when I had believed you long dead."

"That is a long and perilous journey, and I know not if or when I can make it," quoth Conan. "Though I have grown tired of these strange lands of the sunset and would gladly return to Hyboria, aye and to your side if I could! But till that day, if and when it arrives, you must hold on to your crown by your own strength and cunning, even as I gained that crown for myself by the same means. For I must learn how to undo the ill-fated bargain I have made, and cheat our foe Set out of his due, or it matters not whether you win a battle here and there with my aid and counsel or without…"

"Father!" cried Conn, as his own youthful visage began to twist and fade, and it was clear to Conan that this strange connection across thousands of leagues was fading as swiftly as it had begun. The mirror was dark now, and yet still something moved beneath its surface, like a dark cloud of smoke that writhed and twisted endlessly.

Then another form seemed to take shape in the mirror, but Conan could make no sense of it, for it seemed nothing but a writhing mass in which two glowing amber ovals vaguely took shape. There was a fluid shimmering in the background, as if the scene was below the surface of some great water.

Then, the mists were dispersed by an unseen wind, and Conan's spine was gripped by the icy hand of fear as he tried to cry out, only find his tongue frozen in his mouth. For the face before him in the mirror now was like nothing he had ever seen or imagined even in his darkest nightmares – a loathsome mass of writhing tentacles, flowing out of a squid-like skull in which were set two glowing amber slanted eyes, alive with vast intelligence and infinite evil. Conan felt rooted to the ground as if he were a hare under the gaze of an adder.

"Do you fear me, mortal?" asked the figure, its infinitely deep, harsh voice echoing through Conan's tortured mind and threatening to drive him to madness.

"I can see it is so," continued the hideous figure in response to Conan's silence. "Then you are wise, in spite of your puny brain."

"What do you want with me, demon?" Conan gasped out at last, though every superstitious impulse in his Cimmerian soul cried out for him to flee for his life, never to return.

"Is that any way to address one of the Great Old Ones?" asked the figure. "The Cult of Kuthlan grovels at the mention of my name, and yet do me none of the courtesies which are my due. But for your use to me I would blast your soul into a hell so terrible you would beg for oblivion!"

The Crystal Skull began to glow strongly at these menacing words, though Conan knew not if it was at Kuthlan's behest – for he had no doubt this hideous being was the dreaming god himself – or in response to its own unfathomable will. Neither god nor man spoke for some time, until Conan once again found some dim spark of courage in his heart, and found the words to speak reason to this dreadful creature.

"What do you want of me?" he asked at length. "Why did you send me here, when you spoke through the mouth of my self-slain wife? There is nothing here, save this mirror, and you could have said whatever needed saying to me through her shattered form!"

"I did not summon you here merely to talk," replied Kuthlan, "but to act! For as well you know, the time is short. My enemy seeks for himself yon Crystal Skull – aye, it stirs to life, and knows the truth itself – and should he gain it, he means to use it to imprison me in my undersea tomb forever! Then his victory over this planet, indeed over this whole plane of existence to which your world the key, shall be complete! For your puny world is my prison, and so the key to victory for my ancient foe."

"Perhaps I am wrong in opposing him," Conan replied daringly, "if he means to imprison one such as you forever.…"

Conan's blasphemous words were silenced at once by a rhythmic, roaring cacophony, which Conan realized at length was nothing less than the laughter of this vile being.

"So you wish for you and all mankind to be devoured now, rather than devoured later?" asked Kuthlan, as his laughter subsided. "For be devoured you must! You mortals are nothing more than cattle to gods and titans alike."

"Your followers told me you promise them eternal life for their unquestioning service," said Conan, "and yet it seems you have neither the will nor the means to…"

"Do not mock my power mortal!" exclaimed Kuthlan harshly. "Listen and learn! For Set's wrath is far nearer to you than mine. Long, long eons ago the Elder Gods imprisoned me here, on this wretched heap of rock, and many long ages shall I remain entombed, until the stars are right and I may work my own release at what you would call the end of time. But even in my deathless sleep, my power is great enough to ward off the dominion of Kukulkan, of Set as he is better known to you."

"Yet through my own folly – for even the Great Old Ones are not omniscient – I set a great part of my power into what became the Crystal Skull. But a moment ago it seems to me, though it was an age of the world ago to you. And if this talisman now falls into the scaly claws of my foe, he will use it to quash my power and imprison me forever. Nothing will stop him from manifesting forever on this material plane. Then he will devour all he wishes to devour, the universe itself if he chooses, beginning with your own puny race!"

"Indeed the end of man is nigh thanks to you, Conan of Cimmeria! But for your ill-starred bargain, no talisman imbued with my power could ever have been used by Set, save that he received it as a gift by an act of free will – even the free will of an insignificant ant like you!"

As Kuthlan finished his sermon, Conan began to feel wrath stir beneath his superstitious fear, for he was no man to turn the other cheek to an insult to his pride - even when it was offered by a god. But if old age had taught him nothing else, it had taught him patience, and he wisely kept his hot temper in check to gain what succor he could from this dubious ally.

"Far be it from me to call a god a liar," replied Conan with uncharacteristic diplomacy. "So then let us to the point. How can you help me to defeat Set and cheat him of his due? For I am at my wits' end, and it is beyond my power to see how by any deed or stratagem I can deny Set what I plainly promised to him, in payment for the bargain for which he made good to me – my twelve years on the Dragon Throne of Xlantlantaca."

"How indeed?" replied Kuthlan. "I could tell you that the Crystal Skull, which could be used to seal my doom, may also be used to break the power of my ancient foe, so that he many never again have any power over this material plane, even in the dreams of men! Then he will be worshipped only by fools who make obeisance to his black memory, rather than to a living god, until at length he will be forgotten, left to devour himself in the darkness of the uttermost void until the end of time."

"A well-deserved fate," replied Conan grudgingly. "By how am I to use the Crystal Skull to defeat my foe? He seems not in the least afraid I will do so, if only because he knows my ignorance of the dark arts."

"First," replied Kuthlan, "you must know this realm of Mayapan has been the especial domain of Set on your earth since time immemorial, even as the deeps beneath the Sea are my own especial domain as the seat of my imprisonment. The Thurian lands, wherein lie your Hyborian realms, are only in part under his influence, in Stygia and the dark kingdoms to it south. It would therefore seem wise for you to get you gone from these lands forthwith, and back to your own rightful place, the Hyborian lands. There at least the very land itself is not imbued with Set's power, as it is here save for rare sanctuaries such as this one. Even here my power extends not beyond the spot where you stand, and the swamp writhes with serpents and other evil beings in league with Set, kept in check only by the Crystal Skull - else you long since would have been devoured."

"You might as well ask well ask me to fly to the moon," replied Conan skeptically. "How am I to return to Hyboria without a ship, or a crew for it? Am I ask the Quechalnti as the only seafaring folk of Mayapan to journey across these lands to their eastern shore, where dwell only savages, build me a ship, and crew it on a sea they have never sailed before? It would be a task of many months for me just to…"

"Silence! That is the least of your troubles," replied Kuthlan. "For when our council is at an end, you will make your way to the nearest sandy beaches to this place, which lies not far inland, and there I shall see to your safe return to Hyboria. The greater question is what you shall do when you arrive at the Hyborian shore, for it is by the shore where you are still within sight of the sea, and so the realm of my own power, that you must make your stand on that neutral ground."

"Why should I not make a stand on the open ocean, if that is your own realm and your powers are strongest there?" enquired Conan.

"What, are you now one expert mage debating tradecraft with another?" sneered Kuthlan. "You sorely vex me, mortal! Suffice to say that he will not manifest at sea but only on land or in the air, and I need you to draw him out in the flesh so that he is situated within the material plane."

"You must wait until the hour appointed," continued Kuthlan, "when Set manifests himself in the flesh to take possession of the Crystal Skull. You will not mistake the moment, of that you can be sure! Then, within sight of Set in the flesh before you, you must freely offer up the power of the Skull to me!"

"To you?" asked Conan, unable to mask the doubt in his voice. "But you told me your own power flows through it now?"

"And yet not under my own control," claimed Kuthlan. "For you wield the Skull, and yet you neither control it, nor can you use its power to the maximum to defeat our mutual foe. Offer its power to me, in the open and before the manifested Set! Then I shall use my own power to blast him back into the void, and seal the portal so that he many never return!"

Conan's mind spun at these unexpected words, though he was mindful of the inmost promptings of his heart not to trust this dread being.

"You do not trust me?" asked Kuthlan as if he could read Conan's inmost thoughts, and Conan noted his glowing amber eyes narrowed slightly. "And yet I have told you, and swear by the Elder Sign, I cannot return until the stars are right. My power is no threat to you, Conan of Cimmeria, nor to your son, nor your children's children's children for uncounted ages to come. The Sun itself shall grow red and dim before my time is come. Who knows, perhaps the age of men shall come to an end of its own accord before my dominion is at hand."

"I would be a fool to trust you any more than I trust Set," replied Conan grimly. "And yet it seems I have no choice to accept your aid, whatever misgivings I may have. I have no better ideas of my own."

"Good, good!" bellowed Kuthlan, again with an ominous rumbling that Conan recognized as his dark laughter. "Soon my ancient nemesis shall receive his just reward!"

"Then our council is at an end," said Conan, "and I will make my way now to the shore, if you will but tell me the quickest route."

"There is one more thing," replied Kuthlan to his surprise. "Even though my sight is less than clear through this primitive lens, I can see that your mortal form is old and tired, and has not the vigour that it had in your fleeting youth. Though you mocked my power but some moments ago, it is the least I can do to prove to you both as a token of faith, and so you are of greater use to me at the fated time, that my promise to my followers is no lie! For if I cannot make them truly immortal in the flesh, as am I, yet I can extend their span of years far beyond their appointed time."

"And so shall I now do with you!" declared Kuthlan. "It is death to drink the waters of the fountain before you, but that my grace is extended to the one who drinks from it. Drink now, and find your vigour renewed, Conan of Cimmeria!"

His blue eyes narrowing with doubt, Conan stared at the crystal block before him, which he realized now was carved with the forms of boiling jets of water, boiling and furious, yet frozen forever and imbued with cryptical runes. Only from its peak did the meagre flow of crystal-clear water trickle forth from a small hole, gurgling its way down the carved channels and into the foul waters of the swamp.

Shrugging his shoulders in acceptance of his fate, Conan caught some of the water flowing down the side of the carved crystal in his cupped left hand, and took a single sip. It was cool, and tasted vaguely of salt with some strange tang that he could not identify. He looked into the mirror again, and saw that as fast as it had appeared, the dark vision of Kuthlan had faded from view. Once again the mirror was just a polished piece of crystal, in which Conan saw his aged, care-worn face staring back at him.

Then, of a sudden Conan cried aloud as a white-hot bolt of fiery agony shot through his veins. Cursing Kuthlan's seeming treachery and his own folly, he lost his grip on the Crystal Skull as its staff slipped from his palsied hands and he fell on his back into the vile waters of the swamp. A brilliant white bolt of agony surged past his eyes and exploded inside his fevered brain, and then he fell into darkness and knew no more.


	11. The Second Battle of the Reeds

"Now is the hour, brave warriors of Kukulkan!" cried General Xipe, sweat flowing from his copper-skinned brow as he raised his bloodied, obsidian-studded war club on high while the din of battle sounded all about. "Send the dogs of Quechaloc to their graves!" With cries of joy and bloodlust, his warriors of Xlantlantaca in their skins and feathers, and the near-naked wild Mayapani alike, rushed the field towards their hated foes.

Once again, after a dozen years of peace, the entrance to the causeway of Xlantlantaca was the site of a ferocious battle of bloody, hand to hand combat – though this time the Mayapani were aligned with the Xlantlantacans against the Quechalnti. Even before dawn had revealed a vast army of the Quechaloc approaching the city over the passes to the west, Xipe's scouts had already learned of their approach, for such a large army could not be disguised or hidden from afar. But rather than try and resist in the passes and drive off the foe, only for them to regroup and fight again another day, he had decided to fight a pitched battle in the plains, relying to the superior numbers of his forces to seek a decisive and final victory over the hated worshippers of the sea-devil Kuthlan.

That the Quechalnti would break the alliance with their old enemies made under the usurper and outlander Conan was no surprise to any of the people of the city, given that Tlaloc less than a month before had despoiled one of their cult sites and dragged several priests of Kuthlan back to the Black Pyramid of Xlantlantca. There he had personally torn out their still-beating hearts with a blunt obsidian knife in the first public sacrifice to Kukulkan in nearly a dozen years, to the savage cries of approval of the citizens and warriors assembled.

Such an insult to the Quechalnti and Kuthlan of course could not go unavenged, and Tlaloc in the wake of his sister's vile murder at the hands of Kuthlan's acolytes – for such it was, as far as he knew – deliberately and with calculation had offered the ultimate insult to the Quechalnti to precipitate the final desperate struggle to the death. Not in alliance or even uneasy truce with the Quechalnti did he intend to rule the lands of Mayapan, but as their conqueror and exterminator, as the champion of Kukulkan and in utter extirpation of the cult of Kuthlan.

Tlaloc now witnessed the battle from the safety of the Black Pyramid, as his general met the foe head on in the field. Even from his distant perch, Tlaloc could clearly see the two armies, for the Quechalnti stood out from afar by virtue of their strange armour of bronze glinting under the bright light of the midday sun – his own warriors were by contrast a dull mass of animal hides or bare coppery flesh. There were no flanking movements or other tactics such as Conan had taught them a dozen years before, for both sides immediately reverted to their traditional manner of warfare by fighting a confusing mass of brutal melees, each warrior fighting for his own honour and to take as many captives as he could for sacrifice to his own dark god.

For a long time the battle seemed evenly matched, for although the Quechalnti had their superior armour and weapons, they were outnumbered by at least three to one by their foes. But as the hours passed, and the blood of the fallen began to stain the waters of the marshes, the Quechalnti dwindled - for they lacked the disciple and tactics required to put their armour and weapons to best effect.

"Are we winning, uncle?" asked a high-pitched voice beside Tlaloc. Turning about, he saw flanked by her two Ocelot bodyguards his neice Huitzilipochtli, barely ten summers old and garbed in a dress of brilliant scarlet and green feathers woven with spiral designs in gold. Her height, hazel eyes and light skin were unusual amongst any of the peoples of Mayapan. Tlaloc stared at her with mixed emotions, for she combined the blood of his dear sister with that of her murderer, his former friend and now hated foe Conan.

Masking his inner thoughts, Tlaloc replied, "It has been a hard-fought battle young one, but our forces are gaining the day."

"That is good," she said with a charming smile and a gleam in her hazel eyes. "And what shall we do with the Quechalnti when we have defeated them?"

"They will be held captive, and on the day of the harvest festival all will be sacrificed on this very spot at the summit of the Black Pyramid!" replied Tlaloc grimly. "It is the will of Kukulkan."

"But neither my father or my mother…" she replied, but was swiftly cut off.

"Don't contradict me, girl!" replied Tlaloc harshly. "You know your mother lies dead, and by your father's hand!"

Tears former in her eyes, but she nodded her head. "I cannot believe it," she replied softly, "but know you would not lie to me, your own niece."

"It is not your fault, my dear," said Tlaloc more softly, running his finger along her smooth cheek. "Your father is a barbarian outlander, and he will feel the wrath of Kukulkan for his treachery in due time. As for you, you must atone for his tainted blood in your veins by officiating at the sacrifices, alongside me. In this way you will prove yourself worthy of the grace of Kukulkan."

"And will I then rule by your side?" she asked, her eyes more clear and voice more steady now – it seemed something of her father's iron will had not forsaken her.

"Only one may rule as Feathered Serpent," replied Tlaloc with a smile.

"And yet you show no sign of Kukulkan's grace, to give you the right to rule," she replied with remarkable calm. "Is not my father the Feathered Serpent until the power of Kukulkan passes onto you? And am I not his heir?"

Tlaloc's eyes narrowed as he stared at her, wondering where she had gained such preternatural wisdom. Her Ocelot bodyguards stood stony-faced and unmoved at the exchange.

"Your father has betrayed us all," replied Tlaloc cooly. "All who were present at the cult place of Kuthlan have seen the truth for our own eyes, our warriors present there have sworn to it by blood oaths, and our captives from there admitted it before they were sacrificed!"

"And yet still that does not give you the right to rule," replied Huitzilpochtli, with a curious smile. "Not until you show proof of Kukulkan's grace and anointing. Until then, as my father's only child, and regardless that I am a girl and not a boy, I am the heir to the Dragon Throne and act as ruler of the realm until Kukulkan's will be known. That is the law of Xlantlantaca, as I am told, and has always been the case in the past when the Feathered Serpent died on the throne, and Kukulkan had not yet invested his power in another as his avatar on earth."

"I am appointed regent by your father," answered Tlaloc angrily, his patience exhausted, "and as such you must still obey me until you reach your fifteenth year! That is also the law of this city, since you are fond of quoting laws without understanding of them."

"How can you rely on my father's will when you declare him usurper and seek his death?" asked Huitzilipochtli.

"And how can you claim the throne of a usurper and traitor as his heir?" shot back Tlaloch.

"The people of Xlantlantaca might ask how either of you might claim the throne, even as acting ruler, without clear sign from Kukulkan," replied one of the Ocelot guards, the taller of the two, fingering the hilt of his obsidian-bladed dagger suggestively. "Two outlanders in a row have ruled this land now, and the second led us to the end of the sacrifices in great insult to Kulkulkan. Are we to suffer under a third ruler who is not of our own folk? For neither of you are Xlantlantacans by blood!"

"Bold words for a guard!" replied Tlaloch, fingering his own dagger in suggestive reply. "Was it not I who restored the sacrifices to Kukulkan?"

"And yet he speaks the truth," replied Huitzlipochtli, "although presently no man of Xlantlantaca has any claim at law to the Dragon Throne as acting ruler or regent, yet alone any claim to the title of Feathered Serpent unless he be chosen by Kukulkan with visible sign for all. Even so, it seems unsafe for you or me, uncle, to contest each other's rule. We would be stronger together, sharing the blonds of blood with the burden of the throne until the will of Kukulkan be known."

"And did General Xipe put you up to this?" asked Tlaloc of the Ocelot guard, ignoring his niece's remarks for the time being. "A mere warrior like you would not dare to challenge me openly of your own accord, nor call into question the legitimacy of your princess! While out in the field, gaining the acclaim of our men for prowess in battle, Xipe must think he can manipulate me as lawfully-appointed regent as if I were a puppet while he acts as the power behind the scenes, with my niece, the crown princess, a mere figurehead! Though I can see the words he has put in her mouth meet favour in her own dark heart, which carries the blood of her thrice-accursed father."

"You are wise – for a Mayapani," replied the guard with a smile. "You would do well to consider carefully your position, until the will of Kukulkan be known."

"This is all premature, as long as Conan yet lives!" replied Tlaloc boldly. "His heir has no powers while is he still alive, nor would she after his death unless and until she is of age. I as appointed regent therefore rule the realm in Conan's place - lest you all forget! My appointment is not void because he later turned traitor to our cause. Even so, I will take the field now and when the battle is won, I will remind Xipe that we must avenge ourselves forthwith upon Conan, and bring his misrule as Feathered Serpent to an end!"

And with no further words to guards or niece, Tlaloc turned about and began the long descent of five-hundred steps to the base of the Black Pyramid, to the broad square where his own retinue of bodyguards waited him, a mixed party of Eagle and Coyote warriors and some of the most skilled archers from his own Mayapani folk. Calling for his spear and shield, he then commanded them to follow him through the streets of the city – empty under curfew by his order, with an enemy at the gates – and towards the causeway which led to the battlefield beyond.

It took perhaps the best part of an hour for Tlaloch and his guards to exit the broad city and cross the causeway over the lake and marches, the din of battle growing louder and the stench of blood and death stronger all the time. When at length they arrived at the western edge of the causeway on the mainland, which was held by a party of Jaguar warriors, the sun was already beginning its descent into the west and hanging low over the western mountains, although the scanty clouds were not yet tinged with colour by its light.

"Where is General Xipe?" asked Tlaloch to the Jaguar warriors. "I would have words with him at once."

"He may yet be busy with smashing the skulls of our foes," replied the Jaguar warrior with a shrug. "But I last saw his standard from afar perhaps a quarter-league due south from here."

"Be at the ready, men!" ordered Tlaloch to his own bodyguards, and they strode past the end of the causeway and turned due south, skirting the marches to their left as they strode towards the heart of the battlefield.

After passing a number of skirmishing parties of Quechalnti and Mayapani at a distance, passing the ruined bodies of the slain from both sides, they closed ranks with their own forces, engaged in a desperate struggle with their foes, who by now had been pushed into a last defensive ring of perhaps five-thousand or so warriors surrounded by at least four times as many foes.

Xipe's standard, a wooden pole affixed with a brightly coloured mass of feathers and beads, could be seen just behind the front ranks of his army perhaps a thousand paces off. Tlaloc and his men now headed straight towards it, pushing their own warriors in the ranks out of the way as they made their way to near the front line of combat.

Several Quechanlti warriors, streaked with blood and sweat, broke through the ranks in a dash for escape, fear showing in their dark eyes and on their bronzed faces. But Tlaloc's warriors quickly dispatched them with arrows and spears, leaving Tlaloc to finish the last of them with a spear through the throat as the desperate man gurgled in his death agony. Thus blooded, Tlaloch and his men then pushed through the last of the ranks and found their way to Xipe, who urged his warriors on to a final effort while waving his blood-stained club. The cuts and bruises he bore and his battered shield showed that he had long been in the thick of the fray.

Turning to Tlaloc, his surprise showing in his dark eyes only for a moment, Xipe promptly saluted him as rank demanded, though he could not disguise the sardonic smile on his hawk-like face.

"Hail Tlaloc!" he cried. And then dispensing with the formal show of deference to the regent, he continued, "I see that at long last you have left the safety of the city to help us on the battlefield! What a shame that you have come too late to turn the tide of battle, and with its course already decided in our favour."

"You can see we have been blooded even now," replied Tlaloc calmly, gesturing to his crimson spearpoint. "Besides, I was kept busy by my little niece, discussing your plans to subvert my rule of the city in your favour. Your capacity for treachery appears to rival that of Conan himself."

Xipe's face turned to a frown as those warriors about him turned and faced Tlaloc, their attention no longer on their Quechalnti foes but three-score paces distant and locked in a desperate struggle against the foremost lines of the Xlantlantacans. They all clutched their clubs and spears as if ready to spring into action at a moment's notice.

"Insolent whelp!" barked Xipe, no longer bothering with even a show of mock politeness. "I have spent all day fighting your battles for you in your absence, for you were the one who stirred up the Quechanlti to open war against us in the first place! This is neither the time nor the place…"

"What better time or place?" cried Tlaloc, shouting loudly now to make sure all about heard him over the roar and din of battle. "You wish to neuter me as regent by making me co-ruler with my niece, who is but a little girl, which means I would have no say over her and would need her consent in all actions - no doubt with you posing as her friend and counsellor, in fact the power behind the throne. Do you deny it?"

"You go too far, Mayapani!" replied Xipe hotly. "Kukulkan alone decides who shall sit upon the Dragon Throne."

"Not until Kukulkan anoints the next Feathered Serpent by public sign shall anyone displace me as regent, as well you know," replied Tlaloch. "And I rule as duly-appointed regent because my niece is not of age, and could not rule this city even if Conan were proven dead. Which is why I have come to you now. Because as well all know, Conan surely yet lives, and as long as he does we will never have another Feathered Serpent. There can be only one! Though no doubt you imagine that you shall be the anointed one, when he is dead, and you seek to strip me of power and authority in the interim."

"And we all know you mean to claim the title of Feathered Serpent for yourself, imagining Kukulkan will grace you with it!" shot back Xipe. "You have made no secret of it."

"And I make no secret of it now," admitted Tlaloch. "For I know with all certainty that Kukulkan will anoint me as Feathered Serpent as soon as Conan lies dead, and you are but a pretender to the throne. But the will of Kukulkan will be revealed in his own good time. For now, I will not allow you to rest on your laurels in victory this day, while within the walls of our city you plot and scheme behind the scenes to strip me of power, and veto my acts through my sister as your pawn and figurehead, hoping somehow to maneuver yourself into the supreme role!"

"And how to you propose to stop me?" replied Xipe boldly, not making any further pretence of denying his ambitions, which it seemed were no secret to the hardened warriors who surrounded him.

"By taking command of the army, as is my right as prince and regent, and sending it on the march!" replied Tlaloch. "Today will bring our victory. Not at the harvest festival as I had planned, but tonight will bring our sacrifice of the captives, to seek the grace of Kukulkan. And on the morrow, we march, for vengeance against Conan and to strip him of his crown and his life!"

"No one knows where Conan is, you fool!" shot back Xipe. "Do you propose we send our scattered forces in all directions to seek him out?"

"You are wrong!" replied Tlaloc. "Before I sacrificed the priests of Kuthlan, they confessed to me under torment exactly where he is, or at least where he is headed. I could not abandon this city to its foes, but now that their defeat is upon them our army is no longer needed here. On the morrow full ten-thousand men will march north, and we will not stop until we find Conan and reclaim from him the Crystal Skull! Only then shall Kukulkan confer the title of Feathered Serpent upon the next anointed ruler of our land - and that shall be me. So has Kukulkan himself revealed to me in a vision."

"A vision born of your love for the liquor pot, no doubt!" scoffed Xipe. "But despite your delusions, if you have news of Conan's whereabouts I will hear of it. The signs are clear to all that he has betrayed this realm, and abandoned his own throne, and enough men have sworn the blood oath as to what they saw at the cult place of Kuthlan alongside you that I am satisfied of it. But have a care, prince – regent or no, no man leads this army but me."

"Then you propose to do nothing," asked Tlaloc incredulously, "and let Conan flee, surely still alive and claiming the title of Feathered Serpent? For surely Kukulkan shall not appoint another, as long as Conan yet lives!"

"He speaks the truth, General", said one of the Jaguar warriors near Xipe, lowering his spear. "Once the Quechanlti are defeated, Conan must die! Only then can the rule and order of Kukulkan return to this land as it was of old, and this time of chaos come to an end."

Xipe glared sharply at the man, but remained silent for some moments, seemingly aware that he could not gainsay Tlaloch's words, and unwilling to appear to put his own ambitions before the good of the realm and the honour of Kukulkan in sight of his own closest followers.

"And how to you propose to claim the Crystal Skull from Conan, or for that matter to defeat its power as we must if we are to end Conan's life?" asked Xipe. "We have all seen its power. It will allow no man to claim it against its will. If you send ten-thousand of my warriors against the power of the Crystal Skull in open combat, you send them to their doom!"

"Have you so little faith in the power of Kukulkan?" replied Tlaloch shrewdly. "I say unto you, if we have courage and faith in his power, then by his grace Conan will be defeated, and the Crystal Skull shall be pried Conan's grasp! Or do you think that the power of Kuthlan is greater than that of Kukulkan?"

Xipe frowned, aware that he had been backed into a corner by the clever young prince in front of his own most loyal warriors. How could he appear to admit in front of them that he dared not face down the power of Kuthlan, and the Crystal Skull that was it seemed the sea-devil's talisman?

"Very well, boy," replied Xipe insolently. "We will do things your way. But it is I who will command our troops in the field, not you! You and your men may accompany us to lead the way, but that is all. And may Kukulkan himself help you if you lead us astray, or to a bad end! You had better hope the information you extracted from the priests of Kuthlan is true!"

"I have faith," Tlaloc replied with a cool smile, "and so it seems must you."

Of the rest of the battle there was little to tell, save that its course ended as foreseen with the last warriors of the Quechanlti ground into ruin, and the few survivors taken into captivity. All night the sacrifices of the captives lasted, their hearts crudely and horribly torn out in the field, for Tlaloc decreed he would not take the time to lead them back into the city for a formal sacrifice on the summit of the Black Pyramid, nor delay their sacrifice until the harvest festival has he had at one time planned.

In spite of Tlaloc's demands for immediate action, Xipe ordered the army to rest for three days in the field, while wounds were tended to, the dead were buried, and food and provision made for a lengthy march into the little-known lands far to the north. A large body of men, full five-thousand, he dispatched to raid the western shore, to bring fire and death to the women, children, and elders of the Quechalnti and burn their cities to the ground, so that no more of that strange folk of the southern continent of Quechaloc would live along the western shores of Mayapan and maintain the worship of the dreaming god Kuthlan in the chosen realm of Kukulkan. A much smaller number, mostly of the walking wounded, he dispatched back to Xlantlantaca to guard the city walls and maintain order in his absence.

And the rest, ten-thousand battle-hardened warriors, he dispatched with Tlaloc and his guard at the spearpoint on a quest to find and slay the usurper Conan and seize from him the Crystal Skull, so that the dishonour he had done to Kulkulkan would be avenged, and the rule of a faithful and true Feathered Serpent be restored to the lands of Mayapan.


	12. The Fountain of Eternity

Conan awoke with a gasp, his eyes blurred by the dim half-light of the swamp, his skin covered in its foetid mud and water. For some moments he lay on his back,f breathing heavily, his muscles racked by cramps. Then at length he found the strength to stand to his feet and stare again at the fountain which had done him such harm.

The scene was just as it had been save, that the mirror was once again a plain glass, reflecting back the scene before it according to the laws of nature. But then Conan stared hard at his image and gasped aloud at what he saw.

It was his face, but not as it had been before. Staring back at him was a man with jet-black hair, smooth sun-bronzed skin, taut, square-jawed features, and massive, rippling muscles, who appeared not a day over twenty years of age!

At first Conan believed it was but an illusion, and the mirror mocked him with an image of his long-vanished youth. But then he ran his hand over his face, and realized it felt smooth and young as it had not for many years. His limbs and chest were no longer taut and lean-muscled, but covered with bulging, sculpted muscles as they had been in his prime. And his whole body was full of vigour, as it had not been since he could last remember. It seemed that Kuthlan could indeed keep his promise of eternal life - or at least great longevity - although rarely did he honour it.

Conan turned his gaze to the Crystal Skull, glowing with its own inner light. He could feel it almost whispering to him, telling him to turn to the east, to the rising sun, until at length he reached the eastern shore.

Conan began to walk, and then stopped for a moment to laugh out loud. To rule again as a king, to strive and conquer as he had always done – it had all been proven meaningless, indeed worse than useless for himself and for the world. But if every cloud had a silver lining he had found his. Come what may, whether he had years or days left to live at the whim of fate, at least was young again, and would face his ancient foe Set with all the fire and vigour of youth!

"The trail ends here, my lord," said the Ocelot scout, his coppery brow dripping with sweat amid the heat and humidity of the dank swamp. "The waters make it impossible to follow any further. We have reached a dead end, it seems."

"That I will not accept," replied Tlaloc, who as of old had taken command of the vanguard of his armour, while Xipe brought up the main body of their forces more than a day's march behind – full ten-thousand warriors of Xlantlantca, and Mayapan. They had marched for weeks since their victory at the second battle of the reeds, far to the north and east of their homeland as every trace of Conan's passing, however thin, from burned out campfires to muddy remnants of his heavy tread, was found by the scouts,` or extracted from the wild men who lived in those parts and had seen from afar the passing of the demigod who bore the Crystal Skull.

"We have not come this far in vain," continued Tlaloch. "The will of Kukulkan has guided us. Fan out and search this swamp, every league. Even if it takes days one of you will find some sign or trace of Conan's passing, for there is nowhere else he could have gone."

"As you command, my lord," replied the Ocelot scout, as he and his men fanned out into the swamp, soon disappearing in the gloom beneath the trees.

For some hours they were not heard from again, as Tlaloch's remaining men of the vanguard pitched camp for the night on the higher and drier ground near the edge of the swamp. As the sun began to sink low over the open savannahs to the west, staining the sky a dusky red, the sounds of myriad insects and other forms of life increased a hundredfold, almost deafening the men.

As the campfires sprang to life, the work of the camp was interrupted by a blood-curdling, high-pitched scream – unmistakably that of a man. At nod from Tlaloch, the camp guards turned away from their mundane tasks and picked-up their weapons, swiftly guarding the perimeter while awaiting their orders.

"We wait," Tlaloc said calmly. "Whatever has happened out there, I won't have my vanguard drawn in through the darkness to what could be a trap in this unknown wilderness, far from our own lands, and Xipe's men more than a day's march behind us. If our scouts do not return by morning, then at first light we strike camp and move out in search for them."

The guards reluctantly acknowledged the wisdom of this command, despite their concern for their comrades. Time passed slowly as the last embers of the dying sun burnt out, and the clouding sky blocked any light of stars or moon, plunging the men into a darkness so complete that but for the light of the campfires, they would not have been able to seen their hands held up in front of their faces.

At length, they saw flickering orange lights amid the depths of the swamp, which appeared to be torches they hoped were those of their own scouts, though they readied themselves in case they faced a night attack by a hostile tribe of savages. The lights grew nearer, and the guards along the perimeter called out their challenge, awaiting the right password in reply.

There was no reply for some moments, and all of the men thumbed the edges of their weapons nervously. Then, a hoarse voice called back, and they relaxed their guard slightly and waited to see who returned.

One of the scouts emerged into their sight, followed at length by several of his fellows, all panting with exhaustion, their coppery skin streaked with sweat and blood. Their weapons were also blooded, showing every evidence of a grim struggle. Their fellows were not with them, and there seemed little doubt as to their fate.

"Savages, or wild beasts?" asked Tlaloc of one of the scouts – not the Ocelot warrior who had been their leader, and who was nowhere to be seen.

"Beasts, or monsters of some kind," panted the exhausted men. "The swamp is thick with them. Three of our men were pulled down at once by some unknown creature under the surface of the waters, and in the tumult two more were dragged off by beasts of who knows what kind – it was so dark, we could not see, but only hear their snarls and the strangled cry of one of our number. We struck out blindly in the dark, with only our torches to try and see anything in the merciless gloom, but whatever we struck no body of the beast remained behind for our trophy. I deem we survived only because whatever took our fellows had their fill without devouring us."

"That may well be," acknowledged Tlaloch grimly. "It seems your quest then was a costly one indeed."

"Costly, but not in vain," replied another of the scouts, his dark face flashing the hint of a smile. "I had not time to inform my fellows before we were ambushed, but I found this by chance in the gloom, stuck to the bark of a tree."

He held up a single mud-stained feather, a paltry prize it seemed compared to the price paid by his comrades for their evening search. But the men gasped aloud and Tlaloch reached out his hand for it eagerly – for it was the brilliant green feather of a Quetzal, which by the laws of Mayapan could only be worn by the Feathered Serpent himself! When he had last seen Conan, just before his fateful departure from the Xlantlantca with Hutizil several months before, Tlaloch had noted the several green feathers braided into Conan's long, greying hair. It was indisputable proof that Conan had passed this way, and most likely recently judging by its fair condition.

"Mayhap he was taken by one of the beasts?" asked another of the scouts.

"Do you believe Kukulkan would deny us our own vengeance against him?" asked Tlaloch scornfully. "And besides, he is armed with the Crystal Skull. Nothing but our own army with the power of our god behind us can put a stop to his evil! But now our path is clear. All of you must be ready to strike camp by first light, and we will follow the path marked by the scouts. Who knows, perhaps the day of reckoning will come before the sun sets again tomorrow!"

That night passed with little sleep on the part of the men, for all were restless and eager to find themselves close to their quarry. At dawn, Tlaloc ordered a dozen of the men to remain behind and make contact with Xipe's men, who were expected to arrive by that evening, or the morning after at the earliest, and deliver the report of their progress to Xipe personally. The rest, some four-score or so, accompanied Tlaloch into the swamp, following the trail marked by the scouts the previous day into its dark heart.

Some hours passed as they party moved slowly through the murky water and decaying trees, constantly on edge for the beasts that had attacked their party the previous night – although none presented themselves for the time being. Then, the scout who had found the Quetzal feather lead Tlaloch to the place, which could now be seen clearly for the first time.

Both Tlaloch and the scout were surprised to realize that the tree stood by a massive cyclopean stone, others of which were scattered about the swamp in vaguely circular pattern. All of the men had their guard up now, for it was obvious that such a vast work of stone, amid a land devoid of stones and rock, was not likely that of the hand of man, or at least no race of men known to them.

At Tlaloch's command, the scouts fanned out and searched the site, until one of them gave a cry indicating that he had found something. The others then soon converged on his location, and saw what he had found – a strange block of crystal, carved in curious patterns, from whose top a crystal-clear stream trickled ceaselessly down the sides and into the murky waters of the swamp. A pane of crystal was carved into one side of the fountain, its surface dully reflective like a mirror.

"Is there any sign of Conan's presence?" asked Tlaloc, while staring at the foutain with interest.

"None yet, my lord," replied the scout. "But it seems to me that this place, whatever it was, was likely sought out by Conan; else why would he plunged into this accursed swamp when his way would have been far easier by keeping to the higher and drier land round about? There appears nothing else for him to have sought out in this forsaken place."

"I am pleased with your find," replied Tlaloc, "but we must seek further evidence of where Conan has gone, for it is plain he could not and did not seek shelter here for long. Leave no stone unturned until you find his path!"

"I hear and obey my lord," replied the scout, and the men fanned out as Tlaloc had ordered, while he continued to stare thoughtfully at the fountain. He recalled the interrogations of the Priests of Kuthlan before their sacrifice, in which they had divulged they had dispatched Conan to seek out this very spot - which he knew to be sacred to the evil god of the deeps, although he had not so told his men lest their resolve be shaken.

Whatever it was about this spot that made it so important, Tlaloc knew not, for even the tortures of the damned had not loosened further the tongues of the priests before Tlaloc personally offered-up their hearts in sacrifice to Kukulkan. He half-wondered if they had not deliberately lead him to this spot, though for what purpose his could not imagine.

Staring at his image in the fountain's mirror, which seemed clearer now, Tlaloc noted with some concern the heaviness of his once slender and handsome face, and the lines of care that had grown on his forehead and under his eyes though he was not yet thirty summers old. A legacy of his years of drinking and whoring, he thought idly to himself. But then in any case, time laid its heavy hand on all men and Tlaloc knew there was little he could do to stay its passing.

The waters of the fountain looked cool and inviting, and Tlaloc could not resist the temptation to drink a few cooling draughts from it after some hours of slogging through the swamp amid growing head and humidity, to which he was little suited as a mountaineer who for some years now had lived in the mild, dry climate of Xlantlantaca. The water had a curious aftertaste he could not quite compare to anything he had tasted before, but it satisfied his thirst well enough and he drank of it deeply.

Tlaloc stood up from the fountain and took a few steps in the direction of the closest of his men, whose profiles he could dimly see retreating into the trees beyond the cyclopean circle that ringed the ancient site. Then he stopped, falling to the ground like a stone as he cried out in agony, his body on fire with pain as all dissolved into a white light…

"By Kukulkan himself!" cried the highest ranking of the scouts. "What has happened here?"

"It is a dark and terrible magic of this wicked place!" exclaimed another. "What else need we say?"

All of the men of Tlaloc's scouting party stood about the fountain now, staring at Tlaloc – or rather, what as left of Tlaloc. For where a hale and hearty man had stood but some minutes before, there now floated in the foetid water of the swamp the limp, desiccated form of an ancient man, his long hair and thin beard hoary and white, his nails long, his skin lined with a thousand wrinkles as if it had been held out to dry for ages under a cruel sun, and yet thin as if made of ancient parchment. Tlaloch had aged a hundred years in the span of a day!

The men had frantically raised him up from the waters when the found him but some minutes after he had uttered his hideous scream, turned seeking for signs of life, but to no avail. If Tlaloc had not died from sudden aging, then he had swiftly given up the ghost when he fell face-first into the swamp, breathing his last as his lungs filled up with its noisome waters.

"This must be the work of thrice-accursed Kuthlan!" cried the tallest man present, an Eagle warrior whose lined face bore the stamp of maturity. "That strange carving on the fountain, these great boulders that only could have been moved here from afar by a titan – this must be one of his cult sites of old!"

"The waters of this fountain are cursed, I'll warrant!" exclaimed a Jaguar warrior. "It looks nothing natural. Tall must have drunk from it, and this is the result!"

"Perhaps," shrugged the Eagle warrior. "But that this place is cursed is beyond doubt. We must take his body away, return to our campsite and prepare him for cremation with decent burial of his ashes on on dry land. General Xipe will arrive soon enough, and we will have to make our report to him along with our grim news."

"Xipe might not think it so grim," said an Ocelot warrior cynically. "There was no love lost between them."

"Hold your tongue!" barked the Eagle Warrior. "Humble though his origins may have been, Tlaloc was made a prince of Xlantlantaca and recognized as such by all. The honour of Xlantlantaca now demands his blood be avenged, and the target of our revenge is clear. This is yet another insult to our city at the hands of the barbarian traitor from beyond the Eastern Sea!"

"Speaking of which" said a younger scout, a mountaineer of southern Mayapan who was not initiated into any of the totemic cults of the Xlantlantacans, "just before I heard Tlaloc's fateful cry, I found a strap of a leathern sandal snagged in a tree root not far to the southeast. Conan seems to have left this place and struck off in that direction." He held up the strap in token of the truth of his claim, and all the men could see that is was of the common workmanship of Xlantlantaca, and surely could have belonged to none other than Conan himself.

"Then we have our full report for Xipe, and shall await his orders on his arrival," said the Eagle warrior. "Take up Tlaloc's body and let us leave this foul place, never to return."

"And what of this vile fountain?" asked a Jaguar warrior. "Shall we not smash it as an affront to Kukulkan and his worshippers?"

"We have had enough ill-luck for one day without incurring more," replied the Eagle warrior, shaking his head. "Who knows what curse might strike us down too, if we take such rash action? We will leave it for Xipe to decide."

"What a great tragedy this is!" cried Xipe, throwing up his hands in a ritual gesture of shock, though his face by contrast remained hard and unmoved at the report of Tlaloc's strange passing. "Though it leaves in no doubt as to the great evil of our enemies."

"What shall we do, my lord?" asked one of the Ocelot scouts who had been part of Tlaloc's party. He now stood before Xipe's plain canvas tent, one of hundreds pitched in the savannahs just west of the swamp as the sun began to sink low in the west. Tlaloc's withered body lay at Xipe's sandaled feet, a sad remnant of a man who until but a few hours before had been one of the most powerful in all Mayapan.

"Tlaloc must be cremated and his ashes interred here and now, with such honours as we can muster in this howling wilderness," replied Xipe, now wiping his hand across his brow in a ritual gesture of mourning. "There is nothing else we can do for him; we are too far from Xlantlantaca to inter him properly there."

"And what of Conan?" asked the scout. "As best we can tell from such signs and clues we see in the swamp, he continued on to the south and east of here. The water becomes brackish in that direction; it may be we are not far from the shores of the Eastern Sea, though these lands are not charted and we can only guess at where the shore may be."

"At least you have some idea where Conan has gone," replied Xipe in a sterner tone. "I want more scouts to fan out south and east, skirting the edges of the swamp rather than plunging back into it. If they can pick up a clear trail on dry land, they are to report to me at once. If we are near the shore, that is to our advantage, for Conan cannot proceed beyond it and we may be able to hem him in on three sides with the waters at his back, and no way open for him to escape. Then, with the aid of Kukulkan against Conan's dark sorcery, we will have our revenge!"

"As you command my lord," replied the scout, rushing off to carry out Xipe's orders. Meanwhile, Xipe smiled grimly. With his rival Tlaloch happily dispatched by a turn of fate, he had only to defeat Conan – that, he admitted, might be more difficult than he would hope. But, to one who sought the throne, there was no risk that was not worth taking. If he could attain the victory, then only Conan's half-breed young daughter and her coterie of servants stood between him and ultimate power over Mayapan! Xipe had no doubt to whom Kukulkan would show his favour – although, he surmised, having ten-thousand loyal men at his command and Conan's severed head hanging from his belt would certainly help seal the bargain in his favour.

Dawn sent its first pale tendrils over the eastern horizon, as in the twilight Conan pulled his sodden feet out of the last dregs of the swamp, and stepped into a field of dry sand, speckled here and there with tough bushes and wiry grasses. Though he could still not see clearly, his rejuvenated ears and nose worked well enough – he could smell the tang of salt in the air, and hear from afar the sound of waves crashing on a lonely shore.

The Eastern Sea! And verily, the Western Ocean of the Hyborians, as it had been known to Conan for most of his long life. Not for nigh on a dozen years had Conan seen it, since he first was cast upon the black sand, jungle-fringed shore well over a thousand miles to the south of his current whereabouts, on that fateful day when his ship had foundered on the reef in a raging storm.

Conan strode ahead purposefully, as the Crystal Skull began to glow very strongly amid the dawn twilight. Clearly something of significance would happen at the shore, Conan sensed, although he knew not what. Had the Skull led him to a passing Hyborian ship, blow far off course but ready to take him as passenger – whether willingly or no – and conduct him back to his own proper homelands?

At length, Conan arrived in sight of the shore, just as the newborn sun rose over the horizon, some distance below the shore – the shore then was oriented to the east and west in these parts, he surmised, and he was facing south. The whole of the sea southwest towards the heartland of Mayapan, and southeast to the scattered isles of Antillia, must then have formed a giant basin, a fact unknown to him until this time. Conan had learned since his earliest youth in the hinterlands of Cimmeria always to build a mental map of his surroundings wherever he went, and commit it to memory, in case the knowledge someday proved useful.

Still, as Conan strode to the edge of the shore in the growing light of day, and stared at the choppy waters of the Eastern Sea grabbing and carrying away the countless grains of yellow sand at his feet - waves so different from the long, rolling breakers of the Western Sea from whose reaches he had retrieved the Crystal Skull from its mysterious island - Conan knit his dark brows in puzzlement. As far as his rejuvenated eyes could see, there was no ship, merely the azure waters stretching endlessly away from the flat, sandy coastline towards the horizon. For what purpose then had the Skull led him hither?

Just then, Conan began to feel the slightest tremor to the ground, followed by another and another. Nothing that a civilized man would ever have noticed, but to Conan its regular rhythm was both familiar and unmistakable – for nothing could have made it other than the sandaled feet of an army on the march, thousands strong and not far distant. Conan gazed about, and soon saw the hint of a cloud of dust emerging from the gloom to the west, where the scarlet rays of the sun had not yet reached fully at this early hour. Conan's youthful face cracked into a grim smile, though there was no merriment to his volcanic blue eyes.

"So Tlaloc," asked Conan out loud to no one in particular, "or is it Xipe, or both? Have you finally gotten off your lazy arses to provide whatever assistance you can to your long-vanished king, even at this late hour?"

But somehow Conan's heart warned him that it was not so, and his smile turned into a frown. He turned to look directly at the Crystal Skull, mute as ever on its staff, but glowing more brightly than ever now, and betraying his position to the keen-eyed from afar. As he did at times, once again Conan felt suspicion towards the Skull. The bauble was both powerful and beyond his control, not to mention the source of great grief to him, so how could he ever bring himself to trust its strange and unpredictable actions?

Conan then let out a shrug, and decided to stand his ground and let fate bring what it would this day. He had not long to wait, for soon the rising light of the sun illuminated a vast army, which he reckoned a good ten-thousand strong, marching directly towards his position.

Within the space of perhaps a half-turn of the glass, Conan found himself surrounded in a broad arc some five-hundred feet in all directions from where he stood, as the army surround him on three sides, with the sea towards his back, him and then came to a sudden halt. The warriors on the front line, more of Xlantlantaca than of southern Mayapan, stared at him grimly and without word, their spears and war-clubs held at the ready.

Conan frowned, as this was not the customary way for an army to greet its king. Clearly some mischief was afoot, though he knew not its cause nor who was behind it. However, he did not have long to find out.

"At last we see our great king!" cried Xipe, as he stepped forth from the front lines, dressed in the resplendent costume of a general of the Eagle warriors and accompanied by his standard-bearer, his deep voice loud and clear from such a distance even above the crashing of the waves against the shore.

"How now, Xipe?" asked Conan, who did not advance towards his general, but boomed out his own reply across the sands of the shore – he realized Xipe was still too far away in the half-light of dawn to note how the years had fallen from Conan's face and frame, since last they had met. "Is this any way to greet your king? It must be some urgent cause indeed to send you all this way, following hot on my heels, when I gave no such order before I departed!"

"Indeed you did not!" replied Xipe mockingly. "But then what should we expect from you? A king who idly stands by while his own queen is murdered - nay, who led her from the safety of her palace to be murdered in a foul den - all in service to our great enemy Kuthlan, is not likely to give any orders to the benefit of Xlantlantaca! Is that not so, barbarian outlander?"

"Insolent dog!" snarled Conan in reply. "How dare you speak to me in this way? I will have your heart and your guts on a plate for this!"

"The armies of Xlantlantaca do not answer to foreign traitors, you wretched cur!" replied Xipe haughtily. "Tlaloc uncovered the truth of your foul murder of his sister, or at least of your playing a part in it, at the hands of the Priests of Kuthlan! Do not waste the brief time that remains to you denying the plain truth of the matter!"

"I have killed men for lesser insults," bellowed Conan fiercely, "and will soon take great pleasure in killing you, you dishonourable gutter-dropped son of a whore! And where is Tlaloc? I would have his head along with yours, for slandering me so! It was his own sister who was a traitor to your cause, and a witch to boot, though he was too much the fool to know!"

"More of your lies," replied Xipe, his sneer of disdain audible in his voice. "Though as for Tlaloc, alas he is dead, struck down by whatever dark sorcery of Kuthlan led you to this forsaken place on the edge of the world. But he and his sister, and all the people of Xlantlantaca and Mayapan, will be avenged against you soon enough!"

"And how do you propose to accomplish this miracle?" asked Conan, unmoved by the news of the passing of Tlaloc, for whom he no longer gave any more care than he did to anyone else in Mayapan. "Have you forgotten I carry the Crystal Skull, even though it stands before you,glowing with the inner fires of its unfathomable power? Who among you dares stand against me!"

"Who among you stands for our god Kukulkan, against traitors and enemies to our cause?" asked Xipe to his men in riposte.

"US! US! US!" chanted the men on the beach, their cries ten-thousand strong and deafening even from scores of paces away.

"Kukulkan shall not fail us in the hour of our need!" cried Xipe, his voice harsh and stern now. "Forward to victory! Wealth and glory untold await the first man to seize the Crystal Skull from Conan's cold dead hands!"

Screeching out the chilling, ululating war cry of the men of Xlantlantaca, which cannot be rendered into words for one not present to hear its cruelty and ferocious hunger for blood and death, the warriors of Xlantlantaca rushed forward, Xipe in their vanguard, as Conan prepared himself for battle.

"Ten-thousand to one," he muttered to himself grimly. "T'would be a shame to regain my long lost youth, only to lose my life but a few days later! I hope you have something up your sleeve," he continued, staring at the Crystal Skull, which remained as mute as ever, though it seemed for a moment its inner glowing light flickered brightly in reply.

It took but moments for the blood-mad crowd of warriors to approach within a score of paces to Conan himself – he noted with a mix of professional disappointment and personal relief that they advanced in no good order of an army of the Hyborian lands, as he had taught them, but as a wild and disorganized mob, each prepared only for their own individual combat as had been their custom since time immemorial. In this as it other ways, it seemed, Conan's rule had proved little more than a passing and ephemeral influence on this ancient and mysterious land at the western rim of the world.

With only seconds to spare before his enemies were upon him, Conan lifted up the staff in a two-headed grip above his head, ready to take out as many of his foes as possible before he was downed by their sheer numbers with his back to the sea. Then suddenly, he was blinded by a brilliant light shining forth from the Crystal Skull, which froze him in his tracks, incapable of movement.

There was no sound for a moment, as all faded to white. But then after what seemed only a few seconds had passed, the light faded and Conan saw the scene of devastation before him!

For an even swath at least ten-score paces deep, all his foes had fallen, their flesh scorched in some cases to the bone as if the light had burned them more swiftly than the hottest fire, even though to Conan it had felt cool without any trace of heat. The stench of burned flesh filled Conan's nostrils, and the cries of the wounded and dying grated on his ears.

One of the ruined figures nearest to him gave out a terrible cry, and reached towards him with a claw-like hand, dripping with melted flesh, as its burned features twisted with rage and pain. From the remnants of its clothing, Conan recognized it as Xipe – or at least, what was left of him.

"It seems your god has left you in the lurch," replied Conan with a shrug. "Demon he may be, but I have received a better bargain from Kuthlan then you have from Kukulkan!" And with that, Conan swung his staff with a motion faster than the eye could see, dashing Xipe's brains into the air and bringing his suffering to an end.

Conan then looked up, and realized that his peril was not yet ended. The Crystal Skull had slain perhaps one men in twenty of Xipe's vast army – the rest had come to a sudden halt where the Skull's explosive scouring of cruel light had come to an end, and while they cried out with dismay they were unharmed in body. Conan guessed it would only be a matter of time before their desire for revenge of their comrades overcame their shock and fear – and, he noted with some concern, the Crystal Skull was no longer glowing, but was again clear and in its dormant state. Had it already exhausted its powers so readily? Be that as it may, Conan still faced a vast army to his front, and the sea at his back, with no avenue of escape other than to stride into the waves and swim for his life if it came to that. But he could easily be tracked from the shore if he swam alongside it, and to swim away from it hardly seemed practical with endless leagues of ocean beyond.

The sound of the waves hitting the shore grew louder of a sudden, and Conan watched with surprise as a cry of alarm and then of horror rose up from amongst his foes, as they first slowly backed away, and then more quickly turned about and ran, save for a handful of their bravest few!

The surf surged about Conan's sandled feet, still cool at this early hour of the morning, and with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach Conan turned about to see what sight was terrifying enough to have driven off an army of hardened warriors who had stood their ground even when the Crystal Skull had annihilated the vanguard of their army in a matter of seconds.

Facing south and directly out to sea, Conan's jaw dropped as he saw a huge and growing dome of water, some ten-score paces from the shore, the sea bubbling and frothing about its fluid edges. Through the foam he saw half a dozen or more giant sea-serpents, their flesh mottled in dull red and sickly green, their oar-shaped heads pulsating strangely, lashing and searching about chaotically, as if searching for something – or someone!

Backing away from the shore, Conan gripped his staff firmly and pondered his next move. He was not surprised that the men of Xlantlantaca and Mayapan had turned and fled so quickly, but for the bravest few – the fear of the sea was bred into them from birth, as the realm of their demonic foe Kuthlan. But Conan was not sure what he should do – had he not been promised that if he reached the shore of the Eastern Sea, he would find passage to Hyboria? Turning back inland, away from these serpentine beasts, would seem the obvious course, but one which would bring him no closer to his goal of returning to the shores of Hyboria as he had been counseled to do in what little time remained to him before his appointed hour with Kukulkan.

Then the dome of water exploded into vapour and disappeared, and it was soon apparent to Conan that his eyes had deceived him. For rising up from beneath it was a vast, bulbous, quaking mass of rubbery flesh, to which the sea-serpents were attached!

"Crom and Mitra! It is the Kraken itself!" swore Conan aloud, his feet rooted the ground at this unimaginable sight!

He had heard legends of these titans of the deep, like octopi or squid swollen to enormous size, from the sea-roving Vanir of the north - including from his late and lamented friend Sigurd of Vanaheim, who had accompanied him on his quest towards Mayapan only to meet a sad fate by Conan's own hand. Sigurd had said such beasts were feared by all the Vanir who dwelt near the coast and sailed over the seas, for not only could they devour a ship with ease, they had even been known to attack and destroy villages built too near to the coast, reaching inland with their long arms to seize what beasts and men they could and carry them to their watery larder, or even eat them whole on the spot!

Still, Conan had never seen such a beast himself in all his travels, nor met anyone including Sigurd who claimed to have seen one with their own eyes. He had heard enough tall tales from sailors to doubt this one as just another legend dreamt up by men deep in their cups to pass the long nights of winter in the North.

But Conan could not doubt the evidence of his own senses – the immense beast that quavered and pulsated in the shallows and pulled its way toward the shore with its long, sucker-covered arms was nothing less than the Kraken, as real as daylight! The terrified screams of the last few warriors of Xlantlantaca who had stood their ground, but who now joined their comrades in frenzied flight, were drowned out by the roar issuing from the wicked yellow beak of this monster, snapping spasmodically. Two vast yellow eyes, slanted horizontally with black pupils like those of a goat, hove into view while the beast pulled its enormous bulk, fully two-hundred feet in breadth including its writhing arms, further into the shallows and crawled towards the shore.

Conan's instincts broke the hold of his fear and awe as, without thinking, he turned about and ran from the shore and back across the dunes towards the swamp, as fast as his long and now youthful legs could carry him. He would worry later about how to fulfil his appointed task – all this filled his mind now was the primitive instinct of a prey animal to flee from a larger predator.

A whip-like lashing sound cracked through the air, and Conan's nostrils filled with a foul stench, as of sulphur mixed with rotten fish, as a dark shadow loomed over Conan. He dodged frantically, but it was too late – the vast snake like arm of the Kraken smashed the ground in front of Conan, dropping him flat on his back from the impact and then swiftly closed about him in its gelatinous, suckered grip, lifting him far above the beach and back towards the sea, and the waiting maw of the Kraken itself.

Conan's eyes darted frantically to the Crystal Skull, which remained tightly in his grasp, affixed to his staff, even though his arms were enveloped helplessly in the Kraken's inexorable grasp. The Skull remained clear and dormant as it had since it slew the vanguard of Xipe's army. Why had it moved to spare his life then, only to allow him to meet an even worse fate now?

"A strange end for a Cimmerian mountaineer!" Conan thought to himself, as he steeled himself for a crushing and painful death between the two snapping halves of the Kraken's yellowed beak while its two vast saucer-like eyes stared back at him, almost glowing it seemed with a hint of intelligence that was unnatural in any beast. The Kraken released its grip on Conan, and he dropped like a stone through the air, closing his eyes during his last few moments of life so as not to witness his inexorable end.

But then, to his shock, another snaking arm caught Conan in mid-air, holding him more loosely this time, and dropped him on its soft, quaking bulk of its body! Eyes wide open, Conan then dropped to all fours, desperate to hold his grip on the sinking, slippery surface of the beast as it writhed and thrashed along the shore, rather than drop from such a great height to his certain death.

Conan realized with alarm that the beast was now pulling itself away from shore, farther out to sea. Did it mean then to carry him to its watery lair, rather than devour him at once?

The Kraken pulled itself away from the shallows and into the deeps, swiftly sinking back beneath the surface of the water. Conan realized that he would not need to leap from its back in order to escape, as soon it would be level with the surface and he could easily swim off its back and back towards the flat, sandy shore – although he had no doubt it could easily recapture him in the water with a swift dart of its grasping arms.

But then its sudden descent ceased, and the Kraken began swimming with amazing speed for its bulk, taking a course due east judging by the position of the rising sun. A portion of the beast's back perhaps a score of feet in breadth remained a few feet above the waves, and Conan found that by remaining crouching carefully on its back he was in a steady position, at little risk of sliding off into the sea. The Crystal Skull and its staff remained firmly in his two handed-grip, though he now held it before his feet to maintain his balance.

Conan realized to his amazement that in fact a transport had awaited him at the shore to carry him east to Hyboria – though certainly not of a sort he had expected! Somehow Kuthlan as lord of the deeps had commanded this beast to serve his bidding, and even now it carried him, more swiftly and tirelessly than any ship, away from the fast receding shores of Mayapan, bearing east across the leagues of the Eastern Sea, which was to say the Western Ocean, to the Hyborian shore. There Conan could face his final confrontation with Kukulkan as Kuthlan had decreed.

As the watery leagues were eaten up by the swift-moving Kraken, and the sun rose higher in the sky, Conan realized he might never know the fate of Mayapan, and his own daughter Huitzilipochtli. Would she come to rule the land in his place, now that her father was gone, her mother and uncle dead, and the leading general of the realm dead also? Would she remain in the thrall of Kukulkan, or would she forge a path of her own making, inspired by her father's example?

But then Conan hardened his heart against her again, for as the offspring of a witch a thousand generations of his Cimmerian heritage decreed he spare no further thought for her fate. In any event, he sensed in his bones that whatever his destiny, he would not set foot in the lands of Mayapan again.

Thus Conan passed out of the history of Mayapan, while Mayapan itself passed out of the history of the Hyborian lands, unknown and unguessed of until again until an age of the world had passed. The legend of the Feathered Serpent, the mysterious white-skinned, bearded stranger who appeared in the lands of Mayapan with a promise of hope, only to leave ruin in his wake, would remain in those strange lands of the setting sun for eons to come. In time it would give rise to a legend that he would return, seeking vengeance for his betrayal by the people whom he had served. But the truth of the matter would pass into legend, and in time be forgotten utterly.

Conan, of course, was never to know any of this destiny of legend. His mind was fixed entirely on his own appointment with destiny, and his final confrontation on the shores of Hyboria with his ancient nemesis, the serpent-god Set the Destroyer.


	13. The Battle of Khemi

"At last we have found our enemies, and they have found us!" exclaimed Conn to his assembled lords and generals, as he surveyed what was soon to be the battlefield before them.

They we standing on the summit of the low bluffs that stood at the southwestern corner of Shem, that ancient and diverse land which had long separated the Hyborian realms to the north, who worshipped Mitra, and the Stygian and Black Kingdoms to the south, who worshipped Set. The Shemites themselves, who in turn had long been divided amongst civilized city-states by the Western Ocean, and nomadic tribes amid the deserts to the East, worshipped their own peculiar gods and had long maintained an uneasy neutrality between the gods and nations to their north and south, while they pursued their own narrow interests. But that same neutrality had often made their lands a battleground between more powerful neighbours, and it was so even now.

After Conn's declaration of war on Nemedia and Stygia, in response to their outrageous provocations against Aquilonia and his own person, he had moved swiftly to muster and assemble the vast armies at his command. These encompassed not only those of Aquilonia itself, the most powerful and populous of the sprawling Hyborian realms, but also those of its allied nations to the west, Zingara and Argos, and its client states Ophir and Koth to the south. Koth had long been a rival and oft an enemy to Aquilonia, but had been subjugated by Conn's father some decades prior and served now as a reliable source of grain and men-at-arms, and a southern buffer zone for Aquilonia's growing empire. Koth stood immediately north of Shem, which in turn was immediately north of Stygia, and so Koth so was the Hyborian realm most immediately threatened by Stygia's threatened invasion with assistance from Nemedia's perfidy. Thus in spite of the difficult history between Aquilonians and Kothites, the rally-to-arms of the latter against Stygia and Nemedia was to all appearances genuine.

Standing against this vast coalition under Conn's sway was the unnatural alliance of Stygia and Nemedia, each of whom in turn brought their own allies and mercenaries into the fray. Stygia had long dominated and aligned with the so-called Black Kingdoms to the south, and their northernmost outposts such as Kush and Darfar. The teeming masses of those hot southern lands greatly strengthened the military might of Stygia, whose own peoples served solely as officers in an army otherwise full of foreign slaves and mercenaries – numerous and powerful in quantity, but perhaps lacking in quality at least as far as fighting spirit was concerned, driven more by the lash or greed for gold than anything else.

Nemedia, though smaller and less powerful than Aquilonia, nevertheless fielded a formidable army whose infantry was acclaimed the best in all the Hyborian lands, offsetting the dominance of the battlefield that would otherwise belong to Aquilonia's unmatched cavalry. Nemedia enjoyed its own sphere of influence amongst the peoples to its east, which acted as a buffer zone between the poles of Aquilonia's empire to the west, and the Turanian empire to the east (which played no part in the present conflict, biding its time as it waited to see who would gain the upper hand). Corinthia and Brythunia were two nations long under Nemedian influence, though neither possessed a king of their own, being divided into many small cites-states and petty feudal realms. But both fielded large numbers of mercenaries at the command of the Nemedian king. Supplementing these were mercenaries from Zingara and the wild tribes of eastern Shem – the former mostly employed as spies, scouts and assassins, the latter as mounted archery.

These two vast coalitions had grown as they travelled towards each other from their natural rallying points to the east and the west. Now, as the merciless rays of the southern sun scorched the land, growing fiercer by the hour as the morning advanced towards noon, they faced each other on the broad, dusty plain which lay north of the valley of the Styx, which formed the northern border of Stygia, a narrow strip of fertile land clinging to the skirts of the river separating the grasslands of Shem to the north and the vast deserts of Stygia to the south. At the mouth of the river by its southern shore, where it emptied its dark waters into the depths of the Western Ocean, the ebon black pyramids and monoliths of Khemi, the port and chief city of Stygia, rose menacingly above the flat horizon, grimly watching the bloody scene which was about to unfold.

To the west stood Conn's army, arrayed before the low bluff on which he and his generals stood in a broad arc from north to south with the Styx bounding its right flank. At its centre stood the Aquilonian heavy infantry, with their polished steel armour and their woolen tunics dyed black, the golden lion of Aquilonia stamped on their breasts. Well-protected from all but the strongest blows, their armour had one weakness – it was ill-suited for the hot climes of the south.

To their south and right flank were stationed the auxiliary infantry from Koth and Ophir, whose armour was lighter and more suited for action in a hot clime, as was that of the auxiliary infantry of Argos and Zingara, who stood to the northern or left flank. Each bore the symbol of their own country stamped on their own tunics; the blue boar of Koth on a crimson field, the red rose of Ophir on a white field, the silver hawk of Argos on a yellow field, and the white stag of Zingara on a blue field.

Before them stood a thin screen of Bossonian archers, equipped with their deadly longbows that could darken the sky in seconds with a deadly rain of thousands of arrows in flight. Lightly armoured in plain beige leather chest plates and gauntlets equipped over dark green woolen jerkins with hoods, they were out of their element in this barren landscape; the thick woods of the Bossonian Marches, bordering the howling wildernesses of Pictland and Cimmeria, were their natural home. Nevertheless, they were ready to devastate any enemy charge against the infantry with a hailstorm of arrow fire, before falling back behind the infantry to avoid direct engagement with more heavily armoured foes.

To the northern and southern flanks of the infantry, and also guarding its rear, stood the Aquilonian heavy cavalry, the flower of its chivalry and manned by the best and bravest sons of its nobility. They were heavily armoured, as were their horses, who had drank heavily from the waters of the Styx early that morning to sustain them for the hot, gruelling day's toil that lay ahead. Unlike the infantry, their silvered armour was draped in tunics of a riotous array of colours and designs, each reflecting the county and family coat of arms of that knight. All of them were keen to prove their mettle in battle, whether again or for the first time, as merit on the field of honour was the measure of an Aquilonian noble in his prime of youth. All told, this army of Aquilonia and its allies was a hundred-thousand strong.

Facing them to the east was a far larger host, at least three times as numerous, and far more strange and motely in its garb. Squarely opposite the Aquilonian infantry and its screen of Bossonian archers stood the Nemedian infantry, which in contrast to Aquilonia formed the backbone of that country's army. Their steel armour was similar to that of the Aquilonians, garbed with golden tunics bearing the red dragon of Nemedia; but their rectangular steel shields were more than twice the size, resting firmly on the ground when not in active use, while their upper rims reached to just below the eyes of the infantrymen. They were armed with heavy pikes, spears and halberds which could stop even the strongest heavy cavalry charge dead in its tracks.

To the north and right flank of the Nemedians stood their mercenaries and auxiliaries of Corinthia, garbed in white cotton tunics thinly armoured with iron breastplates, shinguards and gauntlets, well-suited for a warm, sunny clime, and armed with heavy iron swords weighted and shaped like scythes. Before both Nemedians and Corinthians stood a screen of Brythunian archers, in many ways the mirror image of the Bossonians. However their short-stringed compound bows, while capable of firing arrows that could penetrate solid steel with tremendous force, could not match the devastating rate of fire of the Bossonian longbows.

Unlike their foes, the Nemedians maintained another screen in front of their archers, manned by Zamorian mercenaries. Garbed entirely in cloth and masks of black, and without armour, but armed with wickedly curved swords and daggers, and barbed and poisoned throwing darts, they served as the spies and scouts of the Nemedians, and also infiltrators whose mission was to slay the enemy officers and commanders by stealth if they could – a tactic which the chivalrous Aquilonians dismissed as dishonourable, but which the practical Nemedians were quite happy to employ if it could turn the tide of battle in their favour.

To the south of the Nemedians and their auxiliaries stood their southern counterparts, allied to them and yet so entirely different in appearance is if to form a separate army completely. Foremost amongst these and immediately to the south or left flank of the Nemedians stood the Stygians, arrayed in a complex formation intermingling lightly-armoured archers with heavily-armoured charioteers. These stood in parallel rows, so that the archers could maintain formation and protection from more heavily armoured foes, even as they screened the charioteers with volleys of arrows while they stood in place and until they were unleashed into combat. Their garb was entirely alien to that of the Hyborians, the archers being garbed only in white cotton loincloths with bronze breastplates and gauntlets to protect their forearms, and bronze caps which did not extend below their ears. The charioteers appeared far more formidable, their white skirts protected by leathern strips with bronze plating, and bronze armour protecting their shins and forearms as well as full breastplates. Their helmets covered more of their heads and faces, and were wrapped with cloths of varying colours denoting their rank. The chariots themselves were each driven by four horses, armed with vicious cutting blades projecting out of the spokes of their wheels, and large enough for two men. When the chariots were ordered into action, the archers would each mount a chariot and be driven into battle, so that the chariots served as mobile platform for the archers. Each chariot was further quipped with scythes mounted to their wheels to mow down all enemies before them – a deadly and unstoppable force on flat and open ground, such as that of Stygia itself, but limited in maneuverability and vulnerable to any upset in terrain.

To their south and left flank stood a vast horde of warriors from the Black Kingdoms, their weapons, armour and dress as motely as the nations from which they came – Kush, Darfar, Keshan, Punt, Zembabwae, and many other less organized realms further to the south. They served as auxiliaries to the Stygian army, for the most part light infantry as most were lightly armed and armoured, and therefore relied on their greater numbers to match the heavier armour of their Hyborian foes. Most of them came from lands that tended to savaanah or jungle, and so were unused to barren, completely open terrain of the sort on which they now found themselves.

Finally, to the south of these warriors stood the eastern Shemetish mercenaries, mounted on their steeds who were reputed to be the finest in the world. Unarmoured save for small steel armlet-shields and garbed entirely in light cotton robes from their head to their feet, they were perhaps the best suited for vigorous combat on such an oppressively hot day. Armed with their own compound bows as well as curved light scimitars, they were certainly the most adaptable of all the armies present, capable equally well of serving as mounted archers, light cavalry and, if dismounted, light infantry as well.

Behind this force stood its commanders on a low hill to the east, an incongruous mix of the Nemedian King Archivaius IV and his generals, and the black-robed and shaven headed Priests of Set, who served as the emissaries and commanders of the Stygian realm. The latter maintained a haughty manner and openly disdained their Nemedian allies, who after all remained worshippers of Mitra even if only in name. They had hinted darkly of a surprise they had in store for King Conn and his Aquilonian foes, though they refused to divulge its nature or timing. The Nemedians for their part both feared and shunned their Stygian allies, and there was no love lost between them even if they were united for a time by their enmity against a common foe.

So the order of battle was drawn up that day, as the sun drew higher in the sky and the heat ever greater, relieved only by fleeting breezes from the Western Ocean some half-score miles away. They vast hosts assembled waited for the fates to decide which army would make the first move.

Conn continued his survey of the scene through the open flaps of his pale linen conference tent, and smiled grimly at his assembled generals – a motely group from all of the lands who fought in service to the Lion Throne of Aquilonia. `

"The sun burns hot," he said, "and already it is the third hour of the morning. If we are to strike first, we should do so now, or else stand our ground until later in the evening. Our men are at no advantage fighting at noon in this clime, but delay until the evening invites who knows changes in fortune?"

"Nor are the Nemedians well equipped to withstand this southern sun," replied one of his generals, a short, stout dark-complexioned man who himself was from Aquilonia's southern frontiers. "Only the Stygians, and their Shemetish and black allies will have the advantage if we delay till the approach of sunset."

"In other words, half the enemy's army!" replied another, a grey-eyed hulking man from Tauran in northwestern Aquilonia who, judging by the sweat on his brow, was already too warm even in the shade of Conn's makeshift conference tent.

"And what then is our tactical plan should we strike the first blow, given our enemy's order of battle and our own?" enquired Conn, wisely seeking the input of his generals as, for all his own barbaric heritage and youthful campaigns with his father, this was in fact the first battle in which he now played the role of field marshal himself.

"First, if I may speak in metaphor on such a serious matter, there is a gap a mile wide between the Stygians and the Nemedians, and not just in distance," suggested a third general, a man of medium height and complexion who by his accent was from Aquilonia's easterns provinces near the Nemedian frontier. "They are not natural allies – I deem neither will go out of their way to help the other. Splitting the forces of our more numerous enemy at once is in any case just sound, good generalship."

"I agree," opined the second general. "And it is the Nemedians and Stygians we must worry about – two strong armies and one on their home ground, whom we must stop working together against us from the outset. I place little worth in the many mercenaries the Nemedians have working for them, and none in those of the Stygians! Those black fellows look fierce, and are very numerous, but they are far from their own lands. I wonder what they are paid, or if they are indeed unpaid slaves. Moreover I wonder what use they are against a proper Hyborian army? Only a handful seem to have weapons of iron. A single charge of our Aquilonian heavy cavalry will wipe them out."

"Mayhap what you say is true as to them, though though it is always dangerous to misjudge an unknown foe, but don't underestimate the Shemetish light calvalry," warned a Kothite general, a swarthy, hawk-nosed man whose country had endured generations of swift cavalry raids by their eastern Shemitish neighbours. "They will seem to withdraw from the first assault," he continued, "only to swiftly turn and fire a devastating volley with their compound bows, which they are trained from boyhood to fire in the saddle. More than one Kothite cavalry charge has fallen to just such a ruse."

"Kothite cavalry, I have no doubt," sneered the third Aquilonian general. "Aquilonian cavalry, I think not!"

"That is enough!" interjected Conn. "We are all allies now before a common foe – I will not have old grievances between Aquilonia and Koth brought up when battle is immanent!"

"Your Majesty, I have misspoken," bowed the general swiftly, though his Kothite counterpart glared at him sourly from beneath his dark brows.

Conn was silent for some moments, as his brown eyes stared beyond the confines of the tent and towards the panorama before him. In spite of the danger that the Stygian chariots posed to his own cavalry, he could see clearly the wisdom of driving a spearhead deep into the enemy's divided forces at the outset – thought it would certainly not have been his first move if a unified enemy force had taken the field against him. Still, if successful, he could take apart the enemy's forces piecemeal, striking and scattering the weaker elements first and saving his efforts against the tougher holdouts for later in the day, or if necessary re-grouping on the second day of a two-day battle, if it came to that.

Conn's thoughts were less clear than he should have liked now that the moment of decision was at hand, for they were troubled by the mystical vision he had faced while staring into the mirror of his campaign tent some days before. Whether it was truly his long-vanished father who had spoken to him, a demon sent to confuse him, or a vision of his own inner doubts or fears, Conn was deeply concerned that there was more than met the eye to his enemies' actions, and indeed to the bizarre and unholy alliance between Nemedia and Stygia itself.

But then he swiftly realized that as a mortal man, there was nothing he could do about such things in any event. Let the gods handle their own affairs; it was his duty to focus on his own.

"We attack, now," nodded Conn simply. "Begin with a lengthy flight of arrows from our Bossonians – they are in range of the enemy's vanguard. Then, the Bossonians withdraw to our flanks, and our heavy cavalry will charge in a spearhead formation, straight between the Nemedian infantry and Stygian charioteers. I want the Bossonians on our right flank to maintain steady fire against the Stygian charioteers, and any of their Kushite or other black allies who mount any counter-attack against that flank. The left flank of Bossonians are to maintain a fire-screen against the Nemedians and their allies. Our auxiliaries on the left flank hold their ground for now, until I can better see how the tactical situation develops, while those on the right must be ready for action at a moment's notice – my concern is greater for our right flank, for on no account do we want to directly engage the Stygian charioteers in close proximity without first bringing their charge to a halt."

"We hear and obey, my liege!" responded the generals, drawing their swords in ritual salute to their king and commander, before turning about and departing Conn's tent to relay their orders to their men.

"Crom and Mitra be with us," whispered Conn under his breath, "and my father's spirit to, if he can hear me across the long leagues of the sea!"

Conn then nodded to his aide-de-camp, who removed his circlet-crown and cape, and began to clad his strongly-muscled, black-stockinged and shirted form into his black steel royal armour, bearing the golden lion crest of Aquilonia. He had no mirror present to see himself, but imagined he did not look so different than had his father nearly three decades before, when he had last faced the treachery of a Nemedian king in the field.

His aide then presented him with his father's blade, forged for his father's coronation ceremony from the finest Kordavan steel. It was long and broad, the hilt wrapped in black leather bearing the wear of many years of use, with lion's heads carved into the pommel and decorating the hilt. The blade itself, which he examined as he withdrew it from its black leather sheath and felt its weight in his hand bore no notches in spite of the many foes it had slain, so fine was its workmanship.

The sheathed sword then strapped to his belt, Conn put on his steel helm, also carved in the shape of a lion's head with open mouth to bare his face, and stepped outside the confines of the tent onto into the bright light and heat of the day. Facing him were a pageboy holding the tether to his horse, a magnificent black stallion, and some few paces beyond ten-score of his bodyguard, the Black Dragons, who bore their own distinctive uniforms of black steel armour, helms and shields and tunics and leggings of silvered steel, carved with the design of a ferocious winged ebon dragon. Spears at the ready, they were as formidable a force of warriors as they looked, every man a tested and hardened fighter from every corner of the broad Aquilonian realm, all bound by honour and blood sworn oaths to defend their king's life to the death. Their officers unlike their men were mounted, the better to protect the king should he need to take sudden flight.

Mounting his steed to an impromptu cheer from his men, Conn nodded at them with a grim smile – it was not his practice to make lengthy speeches at the hour of action – and spurred his steed a short distance to the crest of the dusty hill a short distance beyond the tent, his guards flanking him as did so, and joined the small group of trumpeters, runners and mounted messengers waiting to receive his commands and transmit urgent messages to and from his generals and commanders in the field below.

There, from the summit, Conn observed his own men in the foreground while the vast force of the enemy formed a dark mass along the eastern horizon, the Sun behind them but rising steadily each minute. Conn watched tensely as the first trumpets blew from the signallers of his army, indicating that the attack was to begin. Of a sudden a hail of arrows flew up from his Bossonian archers as the first move of the battle was made by his own forces, just as he had commanded some minutes before.

As the devastating volley approached the enemy's forces, the opposing Hyborian armies, Nemedian, Corinthian and Brythunian, responded as expected by raising their shields and locking them together, tortoise fashion, to try and ride out the storm as best they could – save the Zamorians, who swiftly took cover in trenches it now appeared they had stealthily dug before dawn.

The Stygians also raised their shields to protect charioteers and archers alike but their horses were armoured only with breastplates from the front, and chaos ensued in their ranks as the horses who survived the first volley, maddened with fear and pain, began to rear and mount uncontrollably, jostling each other and trampling many of the archers between the ranks of chariots.

The black warriors to their left flank suffered even more terribly, as save for the Kushites with their shields, helms and breastplates of iron, the rest had shields of wood and hide and armour of leather – or no shields or amour at all – wholly inadequate to defend themselves against the hailstorm of steel-tipped arrows that darkened the skies. The Shemite light cavalry was also thrown into turmoil, as their light round shields of steel could not protect their horses, who for the sake of speed and maneuver had no armour at all. Almost immediately the Shemites turned around and rode hard, striving to get beyond the range of the Bossonian archers and in seeming retreat from the battlefield when the battle had hardly begun.

"Things are off to a good start," observed Conn with grim approval. "Now while our archers keep up their volleys, our cavalry will form up to deliver the next blow."

Even as he spoke – and the hailstorm of arrows continued, as each and every archer managed to knock and fire an arrow every few seconds, with still many left to spare – the Aquilonian heavy cavalry was in maneuver behind and to the flanks of the infantry, preparing to regroup to their front and mass into a wedge formation while still under the protective fire of the archers.

A mass of arrows then flew up from the enemy's ranks, as the Brythunian archers, half of them firing their arrows from gaps in the shield-wall held up by the other half of their comrades, fired their own volleys into the ranks of the Bossonians and the Zingaran and Arogossean auxiliaries, seemingly ignoring the Aquilonian infantry for the present. Conn noted with concern that while the Brythunians could not fire volleys at the rate of the Bossonians, he could see even from afar that their arrows carried far more force, easily penetrating shield and armour of steel and decimating the ranks into which they fell.

The Stygian archers and the Kushite and other black mercenaries also attempted their own volley fire, though the chaos caused by the panic amongst the Stygian horses limited their rate and volume of fire. Their own arrows were also aimed at auxiliary infantry, in their cause that of Koth and Ophir, though they fired with less effect.

"It seems our enemies have some clever heads amongst them", noted Conn to his aides and guardsmen. "They seek to pry off our auxiliaries from our main force and demoralize them, no doubt in the hope that they will fall back and flee the scene before the clash of heavy infantry at the centre of the battlefield begins."

Even as he spoke, Conan saw his heavy cavalry complete their maneuver, assembling in a wedge formation and ready to begin their charge across the field, squarely towards the gap between the Nemedian infantry to their left flank, and the Stygian charioteers and archers to their right.

Conn signalled his messengers to be at the ready, as the battle was now about to enter a critical phase – for he would have to signal the Bossonians to cease their fire and fall back to the flanks of and behind his infantry, so that their arrows did not cut down their own cavalry troopers. Then the enemy, who surely would not passively await the cavalry assault, would be free of enemy volley-fireto begin their own maneuvers in counter attack.

"Now, cease our volley fire," cried Conn, "and direct the Bossonians to fall back behind the infantry at double-time!"

Saluting in acknowledgment, Conn's trumpeters signalled three short blasts, which even from this distance sounded across the battlefield. Instantly the Bossonians ceased their last volley, and turning about faded rapidly into the ranks of the infantry, who briefly opened gaps in their lines to receive them into their rear, where they would re-form to screen the infantry with short-range volley fire over their heads in a long-practiced maneuver.

The Aqulilonian cavalry began their charge in a frontal assault against their enemies as the Brythunians, Stygians and Kushites changed the direction of their fire, aiming squarely at the Aquilonian cavalry in a desperate attempt to blunt the force of their charge. Their fire, however, was of limited effect except where the Brythunian arrows hit their mark, as not only the cavalry troopers but also the massive warhorses they rode were heavily armoured in steel. The Aquilonian charge surged forward inexorably, the ground trembling underneath their steed's hooves like an earthquake or a thunderstorm as they charged straight towards the wide gap between their Nemedian and Stygian foes.

Conn now carefully watched the scene, as he knew this interval between the cessation of his own archery fire and the impact of his cavalry on the front lines of his foes was the moment of danger, when the enemy was free to make their own maneuvers with impunity.

Even as these thoughts passed through Conn's mind, he saw that the enemy was taking advantage of their chance. The Stygian charioteers, in any event the half of them or so who could still manoeuver, swiftly took on board their archers and began their own charge toward the right flank of Aquilonian cavalry and the Kothite and Ophirian auxiliaries. In their wake followed the host of the Black Kingdoms, ready to finish off any survivors of the Stygian assault.

"The right flank of our cavalry must shift course to avoid being mown down by their charioteers," commanded Conn with some urgency. "They can attack the Stygians from their flanks or behind, but on no account from the front. The auxiliaries are to form a shield-wall and mount the bases of their pikes into the ground, to blunt as best they can the charge of the charioteers. Then they engage hand to hand."

"As you command, my liege," saluted the trumpeters, who sounded the appropriate blasts and signals to the cavalry and auxiliaries.

The Aquilonian cavalry began to reign in its right flank, but could not withdraw entirely from the Stygian charge without blunting the main thrust of its attack, which was now diverted towards the Nemedian infantry. A large part of the Stygian charioteers broke off from their main force to directly strike at the right flank of their cavalry foes, even as the main body continued its charge towards the auxiliaries.

The result was bloody mayhem, as wherever the chariots crashed into the Aquilonian flank, the whirring scythes affixed to their chariot wheels carved a path of destruction straight through the flanks of their foes, while their archers rapidly fired into their ranks. The survivors on the right flank then wheeled around, trying to engage the Stygians from behind while relying on their heavy steel armour and shields to defend themselves from the Stygian arrows.

While half the Aquilonian cavalry was thus bogged down, and the other half continued its course towards the left flank of the waiting Nemedian infantry and their screen of Brythunian archers, the main force of the Stygian cavalry ploughed directly into the front lines of the Kothite and Ophirian infantry. A massacre ensued, as the shield-wall of these auxiliaries, designed to withstand a Hyborian cavalry charge, was mowed down by the sheer mass as well as the cutting scythes of the Stygian charioteers.

"We must stop those damned Stygians!" commanded Conn, trying to suppress from his voice the rising tide of panic he felt in his breast. "Order the Bossonians who have re-formed to fire at will into the Stygian horde!"

Conn's commands were swiftly relayed by dispatch rider and trumpet, just as the Bossonians had finished reforming behind the Aquilonian infantry. At once they turned towards their right or south flank and began firing volleys of arrows into the Stygian mass, trying – though not always succeeding – to avoid hitting the Kothite and Ophirian auxiliaries caught up in a desperate struggle for their lives.

Just as before, the Bossonians seemed to be the most effective way to halt the Stygians in their tracks, as once again their horses screamed in panic and began to bolt wildly as their charioteers struggled to keep them in control and their archers ineffectively shot in all directions from their wildly careening chariots as the dust raised up from the battlefield by their trampling horses obscured their vision.

The surviving Kothites and Ophirians then struggled to rally into some order and counterattack, only to find themselves facing a second onslaught, this time from the motely warriors of the Black Kingdoms. Their very diversity was their strength, as they ranged from iron-shod Kushite infantry, to half-naked Darfari archers, to stolid spearmen of Keshan and Punt, and a wild array of tribesman from the savage jungle kingdoms to the south whose weapons and fighting styles varied as much as their dress.

The Kothite and Ophirian officers and sergeants in the field, baffled by the confusing and chaotic range of attacks, weapons and fighting styles they faced, issued conflicting orders to their men, who were trained to use certain tactics in unison against certain types of attacks – but had no clear tactics for confronting multiple types of attacks at once. Soon discipline in the ranks began to break as the ordered tactics of the Kothites and Ophirians dissolved into bloody, random melee fighting, the sort at which barbarians typically excelled and which Hyborians feared.

As Conn fumed with mounting anger at this dire turn of events, he watched as the Kothite and Ophirian auxiliaries dissolved in a bloody rout, even as the Bossonians had brought the deadly Stygian charge to a standstill. It was as he had feared – his right flank had indeed faced the greater peril, and was now playing the price. He was mindful that the right flank of his Aquilonian infantry would have to detach and engage with these foes to stabilize the situation on his south flank, even though this would weaken the main body of the infantry whom, in the ordinary course of battle, he would soon have to dispatch after his Nemedian foes once they had taken the full brunt of his cavalry charge.

Just as Conn was about to shout out his orders, he felt a sudden blow to his helmed head, and his horse screamed loudly as its legs buckled underneath, sending him flying through the air to crash heavily on his back on the dusty ground, his breath knocked out by the heavy weight of his armour.

Cries and calls of alarm mixed with the clash of steel on stel sounded out in Conn's ringing ears as he struggled to regain his wits and stand to his feet. He was suddenly lifted up by the combined efforts of several young soldiers of his Dragon Guard, their swords drawn and youthful faces creased with alarm.

"To the King!" they cried, as Conn, swiftly recovering from the sudden and unexpected blow he had just suffered, drew his sword while realizing to his amazement that a host of black-robed Zamorian assassins had seemingly materialized out of nowhere! They were intent on striking down the King of Aquilonia in the heart of his encampment, even has his armies were caught up in the heat of battle on the field below.

Enraged by this treachery, Conn bellowed, "Slay them all! Bring me their heads!" His blood fired up with ten-thousand years of Cimmerian heritage, Conn then roughly pushed aside his astonished guards, rushing directly at the nearest of his sly foes, a tall and slender Zamorian garbed entirely in leggings and jerkin of black cloth, his olive-skinned face protected by a slant-eyed ebon mask carved into a perpetual scowl, his black-gloved hands each bearing a slender, wickedly-curve fighting knife.

The man shot straight toward Conn with his blades whirring in a dizzying wave of knife-play, designed to distract a foe and put them off balance. But Conn, who was no stranger to this form of combat, having learned of it through his own soldierly training as overseen by his father some years before, ignored the whirring blades and dodged low, striking at his opponent's unarmoured legs, and slicing clean through them with a shower of blood and sickening crunch of bone. The blades flew from the Zamorian's hands as he screamed shrilly, only to be silenced forever by a brutal blow from Conn's sworn slicing his torso horizontally in a shower of blood and gore.

Screaming as savagely as his father in his prime, Conn turned to face his next foe, only to find that his Dragon Guards had not been idle, but had swiftly put paid to the Zamorian assassins – though not before nigh on a dozen of them had fallen themselves to the sudden and stealthy attack. Many pairs of bodies, steel and black-cloth clad, lay tangled together in death grips, as these fallen foes had dragged each other into the underworld.

"How in the names of Crom, Ymir and Mitra did these dogs reach so close to my encampment?" bellowed Conn. "Were you all asleep?"

"Nay, my liege!" cried one of the Dragon Guards, a young lieutenant whose pale face was spattered with scarlet blood, his unsheathed longsword dripping with the same as the panted heavily.

"Come and see my liege," he gestured with his swordarm, "they sprang out of traps hidden in the ground! They must have been waiting here this whole time!"

And even as Conn looked, he saw the pits in the ground where the assassins had lain in wait, covered in light but strong wicker trapdoors themselves covered with a layer of earth, before they were sprung open at some hidden signal.

"Not just traps or pits," said another man, and older and heavy-set sergeant, his jowls quivering with shock and anger that an attempt on the king's life had come so disastrously close to success while he was on duty. "Feel the cool breeze welling up from them – they are tunnels, by Mitra's law and truth! The ground is riddled with them, and who knows how far they extend?"

"Or how many more assassins might spring out of them," spat out Conn, before he let out string of curses in the myriad tongues known to him. "This entire battlefield is a trap! Our foes drew us here by various devices, so that tactically it seemed the best place to confront their forces before they could move north and ravage the Hyborian lands – they even surmised I would use this hill to survey the battlefield! We must decamp at once and regroup on lower ground, farther from the field, where perhaps the ground itself is not prepared against us."

"Then shall I sound the general retreat, my liege?" asked the lieutenant, with an anxious air.

"Not yet," spat Conn. "We haven't lost the battle yet, in spite of the treachery of our foes. We regroup and fight on! And by all the gods and fiends, don't sound the general alarm – on no account do I want our men to think their king flees the battlefield while they fight for him!"

Conn then mounted his ebon chargedr which thankfully had escaped the Zamorian ambush unscathed, and accompanied by his Black Dragon guardsmen rode down the rear slope of the hill, seeking to link-up with the rear of his infantry as a new command post.

Even as he did so, he heard from afar brazen trumpets and hideous cries, as the Aqulonian heavy cavalry charged headforth into a hidden line of traps deviously prepared for them in the gap between the Nemedian infantry and Stygian cavalry! Further cries and trumpets sounded as the Brythunian archers swung round and directed their fire against the Aquilonian cavalry – and while their compound bows could not fire nearly as quickly as the longbows of the Bossonians, they did fire their short arrows with devastating force, easily penetrating the steel armour and shields of the Aquilonians and crippling their horses as well.

"Damnation!" cried Conn, riding hard in a loop around the barren hillside as he sought to link up with his infantry and its commanding generals. "The gods have turned against us this day, and now we are caught like rats in a trap!"

And even as he spoke the grim truth in his words became apparent as the Shemite light cavalry, their initial retreat from the battlefield now clearly feigned, reappeared to the rear of the Zingaran and Argossean auxiliaries, having ridden just over the horizon in a broad arc to envelop their foes from behind. Their shrill ullations rang across the battlefield as the Zingarans and Argosseans were forced to split their forces, half wheeling about with shields up and spears at the ready to withstand the Shemite onslaught from behind, even as the other half were forced to hold their ground against the Nemedian infantry and their Corinthian auxiliaries from the front.

"It's all on the infantry now!" cried Conn, as he finally reached the rearguard of his own Aquilonian infantry, which thus far had escaped the worst of combat and remained his best hope for snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Even as he approach, a cheer and rally of "To the King! To the King!" rose up from the infantrymen, while the general in command rode up on a white charger and accompanied by his small retinue to meet Conn in the field and take his King's orders.

"How now, my liege?" asked the general, a heavy-set man who had earlier attended and spoke at Conn's conference of his generals that morning.

"Things go not well, as you know," replied Conn grimly, "but I will not yet admit defeat or sound the retreat – nor do we have anywhere to retreat to safely, for it is a hundred leagues to the Kothite border, and the Western Shemites will close the gates of their cities to us en route."

"Now is the time to engage our infantrymen, my liege!" urged the general. "The Bossonians have stabilized the situation on our right flank, thank the gods, and the Stygians and Kushites fall back under their hailstorm of arrows. But our cavalry is now in a desperately vulnerable position, and risks being cut to pieces by the Nemedian infantry, while their Corinthian auxiliaries engage our own Zingaran and Argossean auxiliaries to the front even as they are enveloped by the Eastern Shemites to their rear – no doubt that is their plan."

"An able summary of the tactical situation, general," nodded Conn in acknowledgment of the man's skilled grasp of his trade. "My orders are as follows: the Bossonians are to hold the line to our south, with the aid of those Ophirian and Kothite auxiliaires who are still standing – fewer than we would like, I fear. We sound the retreat to our cavalry, who are to flank our infantry and reform behind the lines, then attack the Shemite cavalry head on – there cannot be any traps in that part of the field or the Shemites could not charge across it themselves. The Argossean and Zingaran auxiliaries are to hold their ground with their forces divided, as now, focusing their efforts against the Shemites to their rear and the Corinthians and any Brythuanians to their front. They are not to engage the Nemedians directly, unless attacked. Finally, our Aquilonian infantry is to engage the Nemedian infantry head on, and any Brythunians in our way – our infantrymen's steel armour and shields are thicker and heavier than that of our cavalrymen, and I deem will withstand their arrows except from the closest range. Still, keep a wary eye on them. "

"And finally," he continued, "everyone is to be on guard for those damned Zamorians! We have no idea what traps they might spring or tricks they might have up their sleeve."

"An able plan, my liege," nodded the general curtly and without flattery. He rode off at once to dispatch the King's orders to his messengers, trumpeters and drummers, while Conn and his Black Dragons remained at the rear of the Aquilonian infantry, from which position they could most readily ride to any part of the battlefield where Conn's commands were urgently needed.

Trumpets cried and drums beat heavily as Conn's commands were issued, and were met in turn by the harsh bugles and heavy drums of the Nemedian infantry – evidently they had now been ordered to move in for the kill.

"Crom and Mitra with us!" whispered Conn under his breath, "and most of all our own swordarms and courage, in the fateful hour that lies ahead!"


	14. The Kraken's Reach

"Crom and Mitra and all the gods and fiends be damned!" swore Conan loudly in and in a hoarse voice. "When will this accursed journey reach its end?"

As if in response, the Kraken, a portion of whose thick hide he stood upon unsteadily as it rocked back and forth in the swell of the Western Ocean, shuddered deep within its innards, nearly knocking Conan to his sodden feet.

As he stooped to retain his balance and avoid being swept into the endless waves, Conan reflected grimly that he had endured this most unnatural journey for some days now, with nothing but rainwater to drink – and that aplenty, for many violent storms had crossed his path since departing the distant shore of Mayapan – and nothing but shreds of dried meet and fruit from the dwindling stores on his person to eat, supplemented by the odd unlucky fish swept onto the Kraken's broad back by the waves, and which Conan had to dispatch with his bare hands and eat raw.

The wind had howled in Conan's face and roared in his ears, and the beast rocked under his feet, until even his iron stomach began to feel sick, and he began to fear that the Kraken would never lead him to the Hyborian shore, but rather to death from exposure on the waves – though even as the thought passed his mind, he dismissed its lack of reason, as the beast could easily drown him whenever it wished just by diving deeper. And besides this, some hidden intuition on his part sensed that whatever fate awaited the Crystal Skull, which had lain dormant ever since his departure from the Mayapani shore, it did not involve sinking back into the waves from which he had found it. He somehow doubted such a fate would save it from ending up in Set's scaly grasp in any case.

After a time the swell began to lessen into calmer seas, and Conan felt his heart skip a beat as he saw what lay on the horizon – ships, an entire armada of them! His rejuvenated eyes could see even from afar that they were roughly of Hyborian type, albeit there was something subtly different about their shape that he could not quite trace. As Hyborian navies never went far from sight of land, he knew he must be very close now to the shores of Hyboria, which likely lay just out of sight over the eastern horizon. He felt a strange upwelling of sentiment in the pit of his stomach – strange at least for a hard man and adventurer like him – as he realized how alien to him the strange lands of Antillia and Mayapan hnd been, and how alien to them he must have been. While he had been a man of the world since his youth, and cut from a very different cloth than his generally insular and provincial Cimmerian kin, somehow he realized that this Hyborian and its neighbouring lands was at least where he belonged no matter what further strange adventures awaited him there.

Conan's excitement was swiftly tempered by a warning voice in the back of his mind, which caused him to focus again on the ships, at least ten-score of them, which though still distant drew closer into view moment by moment as the Kraken proceeded at its swift but steady pace on a bee-line towards them. He could see now that they were very dark, moreso than one would expect even at this distance, and although they were broad wooden sailing ships or galleys of the Hyborian type, there was something bout the shape of their prows and the cut of their sails which was foreign to the Zingaran and Argosseans ships with which he was so familiar.

Then it hit him like a thunderbolt, as he recalled the long-vanished days when he had prowled the coasts of Kush and the Black Kingdoms beyond with his first love, the pirate-queen Belit of Shem. "Crom!" swore Conan out loud. "It is the Black Ships of Khemi – and the entire Stygian navy, by the looks of it!"

And so it was. Conan instantly wondered if this was Set's first obstacle thrown up against him in his quest to cheat him of his due – and set up so close to the Hyborian shore, and yet so far. But then it seemed strange to him that the Stygians, albeit ancient worshippers of Set, would carry out the whims of their dark and inscrutable god in a way so clearly aimed against a single mortal man, albeit one of exceptional significance.

As the Kraken drew still closer to the fleet, Conan could see many bronze-armoured soldiers on its decks, and realized that this fleet was prepared less for a battle at sea than for a full-on invasion or assault by shore – although the target he could only guess at. Then he thought of his strange encounter with Conn in the mystical mirror by the fountain of youth, and how it was clear that Stygia was once against stirring against Aquilonia as foremost of the Hyborian realms and chief centre of the worship of Mitra, Set's divine foe – at least in the Hyborian world. Of Kuthlan, Conan had never heard before his adventures in Mayapan.

The alarm sounded from the ships and Conan realized that he had been spotted – or at least the broad back of the Kraken had been spotted, though some miles off. The Crystal Skull, dormant since it had put paid to Xipe and his armies on the beach by the hither shore of Mayapan, began to glow strongly with its clear inner light, and Conan had no doubt that action was at hand – though what course it would take, he realized wryly, was largely beyond his control.

"For the days when a good sword in my right hand was enough!" exclaimed Conan, to the empty air. "Though perhaps they shall return soon enough."

Even as Conan finished speaking, a volley of arrows shot forth from several of the Stygian ships which detached themselves from the main body of the fleet, aimed broadly in Conan's direction – evidently they must have thought some curious vessel approached, and were under orders to engage with and sink any vessel not among their own number.

"I have the feeling this will not end well for them – am I right, you great brute?" The Kraken's gelatinous body shuddered again in mute reply.

Even as the hailstorm of arrows descended towards Conan from a rapidly clearing sky under a bright, hot, sun, the Crystal Skull shot forth a brilliant stream of light, which arced hundreds of feet into the sky before its light streamed out into a broad, shimmering dome which swiftly descended towards the choppy surface of the sea. The arrows then began bouncing harmlessly off the shimmering shield of light, like hailstones off a pane of glass, to a cry of dismay from the Stygians which Conan could hear even from afar.

"No, I think this will not be a good day for the dogs of Stygia at all!" said Conan with a broad grin.

The entire fleet turned about now, arcing away from where Conan suspected lay the shore and towards Conan's direction – evidently determined to end this strange threat, and whatever dark magics it might employ, rather than leave their rear exposed to attack by a hostile vessel and the strange sorcerer whom it seemed was aboard.

A vast tentacle suddenly shot out of the sea, and darted towards Conan, its grappling end wrapping around his body with surprising care even as it left free his right arm, which bore the staff to which the Crystal Skull was affixed. As it lifted Conan high above, the dome of protection which emanated from the Skull grew larger, until it encompassed a vast area around and about the Kraken's girth. The seas about the beast began to froth and boil as more arms began shooting forth out of the water, and the beasts two great, yellow slitted eyes and snapping, beaklike mouth revealed themselves.

Conan could hear the screams and cries of shock and horror from the Stygians now, as they realized they were dealing not only with a sorcerer from out of the depths of the Western Ocean, but moreover with the most legendary and fearsome of all sea monsters – the great and terrible leviathan known far and wide as the Kraken!

Shower after shower of arrows sailed up from the Stygian fleet, only to deflect hopelessly off the translucent dome of protection cast by the Crystal Skull. Meanwhile, the Kraken surged toward the massed Stygian fleet, whose admiral too late gave the order to disperse his ships so that they did not present a closely-grouped target for this awesome foe.

Conan could only stare from far above with mixed pleasure and awe at the horrific scene of carnage and chaos which ensued as the Kraken ravenously tore into the Stygian fleet, ships timbers and masts cracking like matchsticks and whole ships being lifted up and smashed brutally against the waves like the toys of a frolicking child in a bathtub.

The Kraken had over half a dozen of its cruel tentacles in play now, each able through some means Conan could not understand to pass through the dome of protection even as it magically repelled the increasingly desperate arrow volleys of the Stygians. Each tentacle was capable of grappling and destroying a ship on its own, and when one ship was smashed to pieces and torn asunder, that tentacle would then be employed snatching up and devouring the hysterically screaming sailors who had survived the destruction and thrashed desperately about in the waves before being tossed wholesale into the Kraken's ravenous maw. Then the bloody scene would repeat itself with another ship, and then another. Conan shuddered to think that only some supernatural force or forces he did not understand or control spared him from suffering exactly the same ghastly fate.

In an amazingly brief span of time, certainly less than one turn of the glass, the entire Stygian fleet was annihilated as those ships which too late turned about and sailed haphazardly in whatever direction they could to escape the Kraken's wrath did so in vain. The Crystal Skull grew pale, and then clear as the unknown force which had streamed forth from it all this time dissipated into the ether. Conan could see nothing of the fleet now but shattered beams, masts, jetsam and flotsam floating about haphazardly on the waves, the odd survivor who clung to the wreckage to stay afloat either sobbing with terror or laughing shrilly with madness.

These few survivors the Kraken ignored, and Conan mused that perhaps even its fathomless hunger had at last been satiated. Then it sank lower into the waves, though still its limbs and face remained visible as they had not when crossing the high seas, and the beast resumed its steady progress eastward with it seemed added urgency. It did not return Conan to its broad back, but kept him uplifted in the air by way of the arm which still grasped him while its other arms surged and churned forward in the waves to give the beast added speed towards its goal.

Then as the haze cleared on the eastern horizon, Conan from his lofty eyrie could clearly see the goal which spurred the monstrosity onward in a final surge of effort – the Hyborian shore itself! Conan could not believe his eyes, but he had at last reached his improbable goal, gazing upon the lands in which he has spent the entirety of his life and many adventures before beginning this strangest of all his many exploits nigh on a dozen years before.

The coast came more clearly into view, and Conan could now see why the fleet he encountered was Stygian and not Zingaran or Argossean – for the black pyramids and spires of the Stygian harbour of Khemi now rose up from the flat horizon under the afternoon sun, and their ominous profile was unmistakable to any mariner who plied the seas south of Shem towards Kush and the Black Kingdoms, as many sailors – and pirates – did to reap the great profits that came from selling the exotic goods of the black lands at a dear price in the Hyborian realms.

To his left, and therefore to the north, Conan could clearly see now the sandbars and marshes which marked the many mouths of the delta of the vast River Styx, emptying its emerald waters into the indigo depths of the Western Ocean. North of this still lay the broad grasslands of Shem, punctuated here and there by low cliffs and clusters of gentle hills, as the shoreline worked its way north to the western Shemitish trading cities such as Asgalun and Eruk which were too far to the west and north to be seen even from Conan's lofty vantage point.

Conan then noticed the vast cloud of dust, miles broad and high, which rose up from the Shemetish plains just north of the valley of the Styx. While he could not directly see the cause, he was seasoned enough as a mercenary and soldier of old to instantly recognize it for what he was, even had he not just encountered a Stygian fleet ready to deploy an army for an assault by shore – a dry and barren battlefield between two enormous armies, whose combined numbers must have been far in excess of a hundred-thousand men to kick up a cloud of dust so high and broad.

"My arrival comes not a moment too soon, it seems!" said Conan grimly. "I cannot doubt the Stygian schemes that Conn spoke of to me of in that bewitched mirror are at work here – I only hope he has not gotten himself and our army into more trouble than he can handle!"

The time passed quickly as the Kraken drew close to the arid coast of Shem, a broad, sandy beach coming into view north of the tangled green mass of the marshes and muddy sandbars of the Styx. Flanking this were sandy dunes, beyond which lay an endless chain of gentle, grassy hills and here and there small cliffs which lead east towards the site of the battle, which Conan's practiced eye gauged to be some ten miles or so east and inland from the shore.

At length, the Kraken's speed slowed and then came nearly to a halt as it surged into the shallows, using its tentacles now to pull its ponderous bulk over them rather than swim the final yards to shore. Finally stopping with a sudden halt a short distance from the sandy shore – both unwilling and perhaps incapable of fully leaving the watery element it called its home – the Kraken now gently lowered Conan onto the sands of the shore himself, releasing him to fall the last few feet onto the hot brown sands.

His mind still reeling at all he had just seen and heard – and perhaps at euphoria with his return to the Hyborian lands, after his dozen-years of self-imposed exile in Antillia and Mayapan – he turned about for a final look out to sea, and at the vast, dark bulk of the Kraken, to whom it seemed he owed some grudging debt of gratitude for fulfilling a task which otherwise would have been well nigh impossible to fulfil at all, let alone in such a short space of time, and sinking an enemy fleet into the bargain.

"You have the gratitude of Conan of Cimmeria, for what that is worth!" exclaimed Conan in a voice hoarse and cracked for lack of use these past months, "but all the same I will be glad never to see the likes of you again!"

The Kraken glared at him with its slanted yellow eyes and issued a low rumbling roar from within its gelatinous depths, as if to signal that it shared the sentiment. Then it pulled itself back from the shore, and within a few minutes it was far out to sea, soon disappearing entirely beneath the waves as it returned to the submarine depths from whence it had emerged.

"It will be many years before I am inclined to take ship again on the Western Ocean, after witnessing that!" said Conan to himself, still shaken by what he had witnessed. With all the mountaineer's inbred distrust of the ocean, even he for all his dauntless courage might never have taken ship with Belit the pirate all those years ago if he had any idea what sort of monsters truly dwelled in the deeps!

Another gleam began to issue forth palely from the Crystal Skull, and Conan snapped out of his reverie. Turning his back to the Western Ocean and facing to the east, and toward the battle, he sensed intuitively (if the Skull's silent thoughts to him were indeed but intuition) that he was needed at the battlefield, and with the utmost urgency. Moreover, he felt sure in his bones that his final confrontation with Set, and the fate of the world it would decide, was now at hand.


	15. The Spirit of the Skull

"Form squares!" bellowed Conn in his loudest voice. "Infantry, form squares and fight for your lives, until our enemies break upon your spears and shields!"

Conn gave the order as he stood in the centre of his army, surrounded on all sides by the Black Dragons. Surrounding them were an inner screen of Bossonians, who had fallen back from renewed assaults by the Kushites and Stygians.

The shattered remnants of the Aquilonian heavy cavalry stood beyond the inner circle, arrayed about and seeking to restore order in their ranks after suffering decimation from the hidden traps prepared for them, the volleys of the Brythunian archers and their compound bows, and the follow-up assaults of the Nemedian heavy infantry whose regiments had long experience at combat against their Aquilonian foes. Conn had judged they needed time to regroup and draw breath, before unleashing them for another desperate push against their foes.

On the outer flanks of these inner circles stood he surviving infantry, both Aquilonian and auxiliary, now forming themselves into compact squares, each bristling with spears and pikes along its outer margin while its interior was covered in the overlapping shields of the soldiers. It was a last-ditch maneuver of final defence, which if unsuccessful presaged either envelopment and destruction of Conn's forces, or else a humiliating retreat from the field of battle with the enemy hot on their heels.

Surrounding Conan's beleaguered army as the sun began to sink towards the west, and the shadows of late afternoon began to lengthen, were a host of enemies on all flanks. To the west they faced the Shemite cavalary, making repeated false charges and sudden retreats in an effort to wear down the nerve of their stationary foes while minimizing their own casualties. To the north they were pressed on steadily by the Corinthian auxiliaries, aided by Brythunian bowmen. To the east they faced the Nemedian heavy infantry head on. To the south they faced the regrouped forces of the Stygians - now dismounted from their bogged-down chariots and fighting on foot - and their Kushite allies. And here and there about the field they were harassed by fleeting parties of Zamorians, who would appear out of their pre-laid traps in the ground to cause havoc, only to disappear just as swiftly - when their enraged foes did not manage to slaughter all of these lightly-armoured skirmishers first.

Conn reflected bitterly on how events had turned from bad to worse over the course of the day, as his counterattacks against the Shemite cavalry faltered before their bafflingly unfamiliar and ever-shifting tactics, while his own Aquilonian cavalry had flailed disastrously in extricating itself from the traps that were laid for it under constant volleys from the Brythunian archers and assaults from the Nemedian infantry. Now he had to choice but to hold out until sunset, after which, unless he somehow managed to turn the tide in the interim, he would have no choice but to attempt a breakout and beat a hurried retreat north under cover of darkness towards the Kothite frontier. That his auxiliary forces would be loath to risk themselves further in the aid of a defeated Aquilonian army, and that more than one Aquilonian pretender to the throne would likey rise to challenge his rule again were thoughts which weighed heavily on the back of Conn's mind, though he had more pressing affairs to concern himself with at present.

So the battle raged on under as the sun sank lower in the west, and began to grow larger and redder with the approaching sunset - though it seemed to all the men present on the field, in what few spare moments they could glimpse to look at it, that the entire western sky had begun to glow an angry red tone that was almost unnatural, though the skeptically minded deemed it on account of all the dust which had been thrown up into the air during the day's battle.

As he surveyed the carnage from atop the back of his steed, Conn noticed a stranger sight still - a brilliant white orb or crescent of light which sprang up suddenly to the west, by the distant margins of the Shemite cavalry. Even from afar, Conn could hear cries of alarm - and what sounded like screams of agony and fear - from the pressing hordes of Shemite cavalry. These of a sudden pulled back from the battlefield in another retreat, which Conn first thought to be once again feigned. But as they regrouped towards the western horizon, under a sky grown red as blood to the west and steadily nigh as black as pitch above - a strange thing in a dry and normally cloudless land - they careened off as if in desperate flight for their lives towards the north and east, disappearing from sight after the passage of some minutes with no sign of their return, in spite of trumpets and drums from the Stygian forces which seemed intent on recalling them.

Noting to his surprise but great relief that the entire western flank of his besieged army was now free and clear of foes, Conn at once took advantage of the opportunity to sound a general retreat towards the western shore, if only to regroup and resume the fight on the morrow. While the thought that this was another trap passed his mind, he soon dismissed it - the retreat of the Shemites was too sudden and disorderly to be feigned, and their withdrawal so rapid that they could not hope to flank Conn's forces from the west again without giving him ample warning of their intentions. This combined with the bogging-down of the Stygian chariots had left his foes with no forces who could hope to close the gap and resume his encirclement quickly.

"It seems events are turning in our favour, for once," opined Conn to one of his Black Dragons, the young lieutenant whom he had spoken through earlier in the day upon the sudden assault of the Zamorian assassins. "Perhaps the gods now look up me with favour."

"There is something unnatural about all this, your majesty," replied the young man with a frown as he edged his charger forward alongside Conn's. "I've never seen a light as bright as that before, which it seemed put he fear of all gods and devils in the Shemetish riders - did you see how fast they fled in retreat, like the wind itself? And I've never seen a sunset like this one either, for that matter."

"I know not the cause of that strange light," replied Conn," though surely this red sky is just on account of the dust in the air."

"And what accounts for the blackness of the night sky, with no clouds to be seen all day and the sun not yet set fully either?" asked the young lieutenant. Conn shrugged his broad shoulders in reply, though he felt the trace of a chill up his spine - no doubt the result of his half-Cimmerian heritage of superstitious fear at anything outside the norm.

Turning his mind to his more urgent tactical responsibilities, Conn issued commands to and received messages from his varied forces, as they slowly began a fighting withdrawal towards the broad gap in his enemy's that had suddenly opened towards their west. The Kushites and Stygians to the south and the Corinthians and Brythunians to the north tried to outflank them though, as Conn predicted, they had not the speed to move more quickly than their foes and close the gap before them.

Conn was contemplating whether he should order a sudden breakout by his surviving cavalry to spearhead their orderly retreat to the shore, when suddenly his steed stopped dead in his tracks as a flash of light immediately before him almost blinded him!

As his Black Dragons swore with shock and alarm, suspecting another surprise attack by their stealthy Zamorian foes, Conn took in the bizarre figure who stood in front of him. Tall, young and muscular, with the unmistakable features of a Cimmerian hillman, he was clad in the most alien and outlandish garb Conn had ever seen; a mix of garish feathers, golden baubles, beads, and strange fabrics woven with stranger geometric shapes, all torn, stained and matted as if their owner had weathered the harshest deserts and worst storms imaginable for months on end. The dark blue eyes in the stranger's sun-bronzed, youthful face glared meaningfully at Conn, setting off a strange sensation at the back of his skull, though he was sure he had never seen this barbarian outlander before in his quarter-century of years under the sun.

More disturbingly, in his right hand this stranger grasped a staff on which was mounted a skull of human size and proportions, carved it seemed from crystal, and glowing with it own clear inner light - an unmistakeable sign of witchcraft marking the giant outlander before him as a practitioner of the dark arts, as far as Conn was concerned.

"Don't stand there with your mouth hanging open!" said the man in a deep, stentorian voice, and Conn's blood ran cold as he recognized its familiarity. "It seems I have returned to you just in time!"

"How dares this mage address our king so?" asked the lieutenant who rode alongside Conn, as he and the Black Dragons shifted their swords into a combat stance. But Conn gestured to them to sheath their swords, saying "Harm him not! Give him a horse, so that he may ride alongside me, and then fall back from us. I would have words with him alone, as we press forward"

"As you command, my liege," replied the lieutenant doubtfully, "though I beg you to have a care. This man looks wild and dangerous to me, and it seems he is in league with the dark powers - see how unnaturally glows the crystal bauble affixed to his staff!"

"At least one of the Black Dragons has something of value between his ears," replied the man, speaking Aquilonian with a strange accent, almost Cimmerian though distorted in a manner they had never heard before. "But I think your king can see I mean him no harm. I am here to aid him in his hour of need."

"Do as I have commanded without delay!" snapped Conn, worried that his sudden halt might soon bring his entire army to halt their march, frustrating their retreat to the coast. Recognizing the urgency is his voice, one of the mounted Black Dragons dismounted his steed and cautiously led it by its reins towards the man, resting his other hand warily on the hilt of his sword. The man took the beast by its reins and mounted with a surprisingly swift and practiced move, as the guardsman feel back into the ranks of those of his fellows who fought on foot.

Conn gave the order to continue their march forward, and then fell in beside the mounted stranger as the Black Dragons drew apart - though yet close enough that they could swiftly ride to their king's aid, if the need presented itself.

"You speak in my father's voice, and your eyes are the same," whispered Conn so that only the man could hear, "and yet surely you cannot be him! He would have well nigh three-score and a dozen winters under his belt now, and yet you look barely more than a score of winters old, younger even than me! What strange sorcery is this?"

"Not for one moment do I blame your doubts, which I would share were I in your place," replied he,"but it is I, Conan, your father,in the flesh."

"And how can I take you at your word for such an outlandish claim?" replied Conn.

"Do you not recall when we spoke from afar, by way of our images cast from the mirrors into which we gazed?"

"Aye, but then you - or my father - was an old man, as was natural, however unnatural it was to speak to him in that fashion. I am to believe that some magic unheard of has stripped away from you the veil of years, and restored you to your youth? For my father was two score and six years old when I was born, and never did i know him in his youthful prime."

"That is exactly the case," was the grave reply, "though I can scarcely believe myself what has happened. But while there is little time to explain all now, you will recall when last we spoke albeit from afar, I warned you that we were caught up in a net stretching into the heavens and the deeps. There is a great struggle between forces beyond our ken, using us it seems as their pawns - though ill I like that position, and by Crom and Mitra I hope to be rid of it soon!"

"Yet still," replied Conn, "I cannot accept that such a thing can be, or that you are in truth my father and not some mage in his youthful guise, unless you give me clearer proof."

"Then what proof do you require?" asked the man, with some impatience in his tone. "We have little time to talk, nor am I in fit mood for it, and soon the hour of doom and time for action will be at hand."

"Tell me something about me that surely no one else would know, not even a mage," replied Conn sagely.

"It is a long time since you were but a bairn," replied the man, "but still - do you recall the time when you sprang up from your bath, and ran naked into the gardens, where the Priests of Mitra were conducting a blessing ceremony, and you screamed out loud that…"

"Yes," replied Conn stiffly, "though that story was well known for a time - if rarely repeated today."

"Then there was that time when your mother found you right there in her powder room, looking through all the pastes and potions she used to apply to herself, and you asked her why you…"

"Enough!" cried Conn. "Not a soul knows that story, other than my late mother, and.."

"And your father, whelp!" replied the man with a savage grin.

"Then it is you, father!" replied Conn, his eyes opening wide, as the sudden realization of the truth shot through his body like a bolt of lightening.

"Aye, that's what I've been trying to tell you!" nodded Conan.

"And yet how is any of this possible?" marvelled Conn. "That you have turned back the ravages of time against your body, or that you have crossed the countless leagues of the Western Ocean so swiftly since we last spoke, from the fabulous lands of the sunset to the shores of Shem?"

"None of it by my doing," replied Conan darkly. "The tale is too long to tell you now in full - I will do so some other time, if we survive the events of this day! But I will tell you what you need to know now, so that you understand what awaits us."

And briefly Conan related to Conn the struggle between Kuthlan and Set, the pivotal role of the Crystal Skull in the battle between them for supremacy, and how Kuthlan had made alliance with Conan - for the moment - rejuvenating him through the waters of the fountain of youth so as to better endure the rigours to come - and speeding him across the ocean on the back of a monstrous Kraken, which tarried only to destroy the Stygian fleet it encountered just off the coast of Shem.

"A Stygian fleet!" exclaimed Conn, his brown eyes widening. "What treacherous curs! They lured us to this battlefield, mined with traps, and then sought to lure us to the shore, only to plan to employ their fleet and the soldiers on it against us at the shore as a final hammer blow!"

"Perhaps that was their plan," shrugged Conan, "though I am the one who dispersed the hounds of Shem - at least by way of a demonstration of the power of this bauble." He nodded towards the Crystal Skull, which still glowed brightly, to Conn's lingering unease.

"Then what awaits us now?" asked Conn. "Apart from the obvious - an entrenchment by the seashore guarding our back, and a siege by the enemy at dawn? Unless your Crystal Skull can turn the same trick with the Stygians, Nemedians and their allies that it did with the Shemites and drive them howling into the wilderness."

"Alas, I have never controlled its power," replied Conan grimly. "Your father is no mage, regardless of how things may appear to you or your men. But I fear a greater foe awaits us than those of the field of battle. Though I have not a precise count of days, it is nigh on a dozen years since I made my fateful bargain with Set - looking at the blood run sky and in the west, and the unnatural ebon sky above, and feeling the promptings of my heart - or perhaps the silent whisperings of the Skull in my ear - I feel in my bones that the hour of doom is upon us."

"And what will you do when it is, father?" asked Conn.

"That I would not tell you, even if I knew," replied Conan, with unusual discretion. "For if I speak my mind aloud then Set may hear, to the ruin of us all."

"Shall I not at least tell our knights and soldiers of your return?" asked Conn more hopefully - so great was the turmoil of his spirit that this thought had only now occurred to him. "Such good news would give them hope unlooked for in their hour of trial."

"No!" replied Conan sternly. "For one thing, if you doubted me at first, how grave do you think their doubts will be? For there are few members of your Dragon Guard who would have been in service to the Lion Throne when I gave up my crown to sail into the west; and surely, there is no man left alive in Hyboria today who knew me in my youth. They would all think you had lost your mind, and you would be discredited before their eyes both as commander in the field of battle and as king."

"And as to the latter," Conan continued, "if they did believe you then what would happen? Would they seek to reinstate me on the throne? I would not wish it, nor should you, for Aquilonia is now yours and yours alone to rule. Whatever happens this night, of one thing am I sure - never again will I king it in Aquilonia, or any other land!"

"Perhaps you still have the wisdom of a greybeard, in spite of once again having the body of a youth," mused Conn. "Yet it is maddening to know the truth of this miracle, and be silent concerning it!"

"That is the least of your concerns!" replied Conan, his voice hoarse and tight now as he suddenly drew the reins of his steed to a halt. "Look!"

He gestured towards the blood-red sky to the west, where it met the ebon vault above. Conn's own steed now came to a halt of its own accord, as all the men of all the hosts assembled on both sides stilled their march to gaze in mixed awe and fear at the sight in the heavens above.

As lightning began to arc along the boundary between the crimson glare of the setting sun and the ebon vault of the sky above, a sphere black as jet and broad as the moon appeared suddenly just above the horizon. Howling winds surged forth out of the sphere, leading to a sudden halt to the march of all the armies on the field, and cries of alarm and fear from countless men present - save the Stygians and Kushites alone, who dropped their spears and shields and dropped to the ground where they stood, prostrating themselves in an attitude of worship as they began to chant in deep, monotonous voices in their own cryptical tongue.

"By Mitra!" exclaimed Conn, as his steed neighed and pawed the ground nervously and he struggled to keep it in check. "What in heaven's name is that?"

"It's not Mitra and surely not from heaven," replied Conan tersely, dismounting his own panicked steed as Conn noted that the mysterious Crystal Skull which he bore glowed more brightly than ever, leading to further cries of alarm and suspicion from the Black Dragons nearby. "I deem the hour of fulfilment of my bargain with the old serpent himself is at hand!"

"Set!" exclaimed Conn in shock and horror. And even as he spoke the dreaded name, revered by the Stygians and feared by the Hyborians in equal measure, a dim stirring of shape and form could be seen within the sphere, even darker as if it were not merely the absence of light, but a tangible thing which absorbed and extinguished all light within itself.

Conan's awareness of all about him dimmed as the armies of men, and even the nearby shape of his own son, were obscured in gloom and their cries dimmed and silenced, while within the curling columns that drifted out of the portal two glowing red embers took shape. But this time Conan well knew what stood before him - the writhing, crimson-eyed avatar of Set himself!

"At last the hour has come, Conan of Cimmeria!" gloated Set, his red eyes glaring balefully. "I see that you have obtained one benefit at least from your treason and dealings with my foe - renewed youthfulness of your mortal frame. I trust you put this to good use during the brief time you could enjoy it, for I promise you that you will pay a heavy price for your treachery!"

"You are the father of lies and treachery, and yet I do not fear you!" shot back Conan defiantly.

"Then you are even more stupid than I had imagined," hissed Set, his slanted red eyes narrowing as he bared his ivory-white fangs, dripping with smoking ichor. "But I will not bandy further words with you, mortal. All you have done is in vain and now you have reached the moment of reckoning. I have fulfilled my pact with you, and you will fulfil your pact with me. Give me the Crystal Skull, now!"

Conan felt his right arm moving by a power greater than his own will - though whether it was by the will of Set, or some immutable law of the universe Conan had put in motion through his pact, he could not tell. As if he were a puppet whose strings were pulled by an invisible master, and despite exerting every ounce of his willpower to the contrary, Conan helplessly held up the staff to which the Crystal Skull was affixed, offering it up to Set's scaly grasp.

To Conan's amazement, the wooden staff suddenly crumbed to ash in his hands and blew away as dust in the wind, yet the Crystal Skull, glowing now more brightly than ever before, was suspended in the air, seemingly in a final manifestation of its own innate power.

Black, snaky tendrils descended down from the portal, as Set reached out to finally claim the great prize he had long sought, and Conan's mind raced desperately as for the first time in his long life he faced what seemed a final and absolute defeat. For all Kuthlan's aid to him, he feared that to call upon the aid of Kuthlan and offer up the Crystal Skull even now to that demon of the deeps, before Set to seize it for himself, would merely be to jump from the frying pan into the fire.

Conan was alone, and now that the moment of truth was at hand he still had no idea what he could do to cheat Set of what he had promised to him without unleashing the monstrous evil of Kuthlan.

Suddenly, the realization came into Conan's mind that there was nothing he could do - nothing at all. His role as a pawn in the game of the gods was at an end, and whatever fate had in store now, it was beyond his power and strength to shape the final outcome.

Feeling strangely calm at this intuition - when in his youth, he would have felt exactly the opposite - Conan threw up his arms, and cried out in his deep, stentorian voice, _"_ Spirit within the Skull, I am bound my my own bargains, but you are not. Choose yourself whom you will serve – Set, Kuthlan, or your own will above all!"

Set laughed darkly at this futile gesture by the doomed mortal before him, when his prize was almost within his grasp. But then his laughter ceased suddenly, and his glowing crimson eyes opened widely, as the Skull began to shimmer and vibrate, an ominous humming sound issuing forth from it growing louder each passing second. It seemed Conan had not uttered his final words to the Crystal Skull in vain.

There was a sudden flash of white light, and then Conan and his demonic foe both gasped aloud - for before them now hovered not one, but three Crystal Skulls, each identical to the other! These began to spin around and around an unseen axis, faster and faster, swapping places fast than the eye could see, until their movements came into a sudden stop, and the three identical skulls, glowing brightly, stood suspended in the air as Set's smoky tendrils flitted about, approaching but not yet seizing any of them in their grasp.

Then a voice issued forth from each of the three Crystal Skulls deep and clear, echoing as it was repeated between them:

" _Conan of Cimmeria has fulfilled his bargain, Set! Now choose, and chose wisely. For one of these skulls is genuine, and the others are counterfeit! Choose poorly, and your own bargain shall be voided by your own actions, with the true Crystal Skull and its power shall be forever beyond your scaly grasp!"_

"What is this outrage!" boomed Set, his wrath so palpable as to cause the hairs on Conan's skin to stand on end.

"It is not my doing, in spite of my words," replied Conan as evenly as he could, given the dire peril in which he found himself.

"And yet you will pay for it, when I have my trophy!" hissed Set venomously. "You will suffer the tortures of the damned a thousand fold!"

Without further word to the Cimmerian, Set then turned his crimson gaze fully upon the three glowing skulls hovering before him.

"I see now, Sprit of the Skull, that you were no common sorcerer amongst mortal men, imbued with the power of my foe!" Set exclaimed directly to the skulls, his eyes widening. "You heated my foe ages ago, deceiving him into surrendering the great bulk of his power into your own mortal frame, and then using that power to render yourself into your presented form. But you will not outwit me, nor cheat me of my due!"

Smoky tendrils once again shot forth from from the portal and writhed sinuously around the skulls, as if trying to sense some unseen emanation from them, while carefully avoiding touching them.

"Enough of these conjuror's tricks!" exclaimed Set at length - seemingly unable to choose. "I will have them all, without now choosing any of them as the true Crystal Skull in fulfilment of the pact!" And the smoking tendrils all shot forth at once, seizing the skulls and drawing them back into the portal from whence Set had come.

"There is no time in the void!" laughed Set triumphantly as his sinuous form began to withdraw into the portal. "If it take me a thousand thousand mortal years of this planet, I will learn which of these is the genuine Crystal Skull - but to you, Cimmerian, it will seem but a moment has elapsed! Then I shall deal with you at my leisure, before I turn my attention to aiding my mortal followers in sweeping your son's armies into the sea, and your son himself into the void along with you!"

"By Crom and Mitra, you shall not!" bellowed Conan with rage - and yet uselessly, for he knew how useless were his words and even the limit of his deeds before the unleashed power of a hostile god, now that all of his devices and strategems were at an end.

 _"Crom answers not the prayers of Men,"_ came forth the voice of Crystal Skull from all three of its copies. _"But Mitra may yet do so!"_

"No! It cannot be!" hissed Set, and Conan realized that even his deep, inhuman voice was tinged with fear. "The Elder Gods have departed from this plane, never to return!"

 _"You have chosen poorly,"_ replied the Spirit of the Skull to Set. _"Now you will pay the price - for the Crystal Skull and its power shall be lost to you forever!"_

"NOOO!" screamed Set in a shrill voice, as the three skulls glowed more brightly than mortal eyes could bear, spinning faster and faster even as the smoking tendrils had almost drawn them through the portal into the void from which Set had come forth. As Conan stared in amazement, there was a blinding explosion of light as each of the three skulls shot forth from Set's grasp, only to each fly off at tremendous speed in its own direction as if they were shooting stars - towards the sky, the earth, and the sea, all soon vanishing at lightening speed far beyond his sight.

Set, meanwhile, was drawn back inside the portal, seemingly unable to continue his manifestation on the material plane now that the Crystal Skull had cheated him of his due, and left him shorn of its power when almost within his grasp.

"CURSE YOU, CONAN OF CIMMERIA!" boomed Set, his crimson eyes ablaze with rage and hatred against his mortal foe. "Should you be reborn a hundred times, still I will remember your treachery, and hunt you to your doom!"

The portal suddenly snapped shut and disappeared, Set's hateful visage withdrawing from Conan's sight for the last time - or so he hoped.

But then the crimson glare of the sunset - if such indeed it was, for Conan could sense nothing else about him, and feared he had somehow been removed from the material realm onto the astral plane - shimmered and quavered strangely, shifting colour from deep red to brilliant green, and then a deepening blue that was almost black, though still tinged with a sickly greenish hue. Conan felt a mounting sense of pressure all about, and began to breath with difficulty, as if he were no longer surrounded by the air, but by some crushing invisible force or pressure whose nature he could only guess at.

The hard ground began to dissolve beneath Conan's feet, which sank into the mire. Strange dark shapes then began to loom before Conan's eyes, and he realized with a chill down his spine that this grim place was not unknown to him. He had been here before, long before, if only in a dream.

The faint, unearthly glow of towers and temples, steps and streets, all set at impossible angles and twisted into impossible shapes, now appeared more clearly before Conan's troubled eyes, amid the shimmering of deep waters - the sunken city of Kuthlan himself!

"Out of the frying pan, and into the fire," whispered Conan under his breath.

To his surprise, a glowing object slowly descended from the darkness above, gradually sinking onto the surface of the mire - the Crystal Skull! Or at least, Conan realized, one of its counterfeits, for even he, who had kept the Skull in his possession for a dozen years, could not tell the genuine article from its identical imposters.

Two of the great, bizarrely-shaped and hideously-carved doors to one of the massive edifices on the side of the sunken city closest to Conan now began to open slowly, a shimmering greenish hue issuing forth from them in trails of greenish vapour as the unseen occupant within stirred to life. Conan braced himself even as his blood ran cold, for he realized that he now faced the second of the two dark powers who had used him as a pawn for the past dozen years, and feared its full revelation of its presence in its own domain would be far more terrible than the partial and tenuous image he had glimpsed in the crystal mirror of the fountain of youth.

Two slanted, glowing amber ovals suddenly appear in the dark chamber once shielded by the doors, and Conan felt the icy hand of fear grip his spine as once again, as in his dream, he stared into the eyes of Kuthlan - for as at that time, he sense in Kuthlan a presence more alien and incomprehensible to the mind of man than Set, whose will to power matched that of men them selves, and whose chosen avatar at least was that of a beast, the serpent, whom men knew, even if loathed by them.

Conan's silent wish that Kuthlan would not come forth from his lair was dashed immediately, as the vast bulk of Kuthlan surged forth into the waters between them. Conan was petrified with horror beyond the imagining of the thousand generations of superstitious Cimmerian mountaineers from whom he was descended at the indescribable sight before him - a colossal, flailing mass of tentacles, feelers, taloned claws, scaly wings, and a vast pulsating, bulbous head to which those hideous amber eyes were affixed. A vertical slit appeared between and below the eyes, opening to reveal thousands of hideously sharp, serrated teeth guarding the maw of the hideous being.

Conan could not even find the words in any language known to him to describe the true appearance, the horror of Kuthlan - it was simply beyond the mind of man, and Conan could not fathom how his own mortal mind maintained its sanity when faced with this utterly alien and inhuman presence. If Set was a dark entity spawned in the pits of Hell, evil shaped by order and desiring to twist all things to its black desire, then Kuthlan was the embodiment of the seething, formless nothingness before there ever was a Hell, evil chaotic and unbridled.

"So in spite of disregarding my command to offer up the Crystal Skull to me, you have cheated Set of his due, even as his prize was within his grasp!" rumbled Kuthlan in a deep yet hollow voice, as if muffled by the watery depths which separated them. "I always knew the Crystal Skull would never serve Set at the hour of doom, though Set's greed blinded him to the truth. He has surely spent much of his power in his futile attempt seize it for himself, and it will be eons before he can manifest in the material plane again. I am well-pleased, and doubly so that you have delivered the Crystal Skull to me!"

As Conan stared back in horror, Kuthlan continued to speak: "In spite of your treachery, Conan of Cimmeria, the Crystal Skull has sought me out. How could it be otherwise, when it embodies so much of my own power? Now it shall be mine, and absorbing its power within myself, mine own shall wax to the full! At last I shall be freed from this watery tomb, to raven and slay and delight in this and many other worlds, without Set the Accursed to stand in my way with his paltry dreams of dominion!"

"Then all along you used me as your pawn, so that the world could fall into your grasp, rather than that of Set?" Conan asked grimly, mustering up the courage to speak.

"Did you expect otherwise, mortal fool?" asked Kuthlan, as one of his tentacles, layered with suction cups like that of the Kraken, surged forth towards the Crystal Skull. "And thanks to the gift of youth I have given you, you will have many long years to savour the bitter fruit of your labours! It is the least punishment you deserve, for you have never numbered amongst my mortal servants in truth, serving always your own feeble will in place of my desires!"

"How do you know for a certainty the Crystal Skull before you is the genuine one?" asked Conan suddenly, in a stroke of guile surprising even himself. "I deem you saw and heard what happened from afar, here in your watery lair. The Crystal Skull will not readily surrender its power to the dark. Choose poorly, grasping a counterfeit, and surely you will remain condemned in your watery tomb forever, just as Set has failed to escape his prison in the Void!"

Kuthlan's eyes flashed brightly with a greenish glow as his tentacles stopped short suddenly, just shy of the Crystal Skull. The monstrous being then turned its gaze towards the Skull directly, though unlike Set his eyes neither grew larger nor narrowed under the burden of any emotion recognizable to men.

"It _might_ have been better for you and your world had you said nothing, so great was my eagerness to claim the Skull and its power for myself, even at the risk of repeating Set's folly," exclaimed Kuthlan, turning his unbearable gaze on Conan once again. "But unlike Set, I am patient. I can wait! If it takes twelve-thousand years for me to unravel this puzzle, so long shall I wait, until I have recovered all copies of the Crystal Skull, and am certain my choice is the right one. Then let the world tremble!"

"And as for you, Conan of Cimmeria," continued Kuthlan, "though it is within my power to crush you like the lowest insect, yet I will not do so. Instead I will offer you a parting gift of wisdom. For mortal men, life on the material plane is not a gift, but a curse! You will rue the day I allowed you to drink from the waters of the fountain of youth with my blessing, and I shall laugh from afar as I witness your slow but certain ruin!"

And with that cryptical remark, the shambling bulk of Kuthlan withdrew swiftly inside his lair, the huge doors swung shut, and Conan found himself in ebon darkness, save for the clear light of the Crystal Skull which still stood before him when all else had faded from sight.

The Skull fixed its empty gaze on Conan, and as the light within shone more and more brightly, it expanded into a growing sphere of light which pushed back the all-encompassing dark, until it was beyond the limits of Conan's vision. The sense of pressure on his chest eased, he found he could breathe once more, and his feet no longer stood on any type of surface - rather it seemed he floated weightlessly in a timeless realm of pure, clear light, which gave him a sense of calm and peace he had never known in waking life throughout his long years on earth.

"Welcome, Conan of Cimmeria, to the Celestial Realm," intoned the Spirit of the Skull, as it spoke directly to Conan for the first time.

"I never thought that I of all men would enter Heaven!" exclaimed Conan, unsure of what else to say.

"Stranger things have happened," replied the Spirit

"Am I then dead at last?" asked Conan, unsure of whether to feel anxious or relieved.

"That is up to you," replied the Spirit. "Know, Conan, that this avatar I have taken, the Crystal Skull, is the transmuted remains of a Lemurian wizard who long ago betrayed Kuthlan - or Cuthulu, his true name - when he realized how vile was the evil that he served. But though a great portion of Cuthulu's power was contained within by the Lemurian's ruse against the dark god of the deeps - so much is known to you - the spirit of the Crystal Skull whose presence you have so often felt was never that of the Lemurian wizard himself! For he has long since passed into the realms beyond the physical world. I assumed control of the powers of the Crystal Skull in answer to the Lemurian's prayer as he died, though he knew me by another name than do you."

"Then who are you?" asked Conan simply.

"Can you not guess?" replied the Spirit. "Set himself recognized the presence of the Elder Gods within this form!"

"By Mitra..." exclaimed Conan...

"It avails you nought to swear by my name, when in my presence," replied Mitra - for so indeed it was!

"And then you have chosen the Crystal Skull as your avatar?" asked Conan, astounded.

"As a ruse against the powers of primal darkness," replied Mitra. "Though my true form, as far as mortal mind can comprehend, is light itself."

"Crom!" exclaimed Conan, at a loss for words.

"A dark god of the underworld," replied Mitra, with what Conan felt was a wave of disapproval. "Though not evil as are Set and Kuthlan, yet caring not for Men and their fate. It is strange and perverse your people have chosen him for your worship, though in your ferocious spirit of strife you are one of his true sons."

"I am what I am," replied Conan, not knowing what else to say in his defence. "But what did you mean earlier when I asked you if I was dead? I can choose what?"

"To remain here, in the Celestial Realms, and in the company of myself and other Elder Gods who shall hail you as a hero if you choose to remain," replied Mitra. "For you have restrained both Set and Cuthulu in the prisons in which they were long ago placed, frustrating and foiling their plans to escape, to tyrannize the world as Set had hoped, or consume it as Cuthulu had planned. Set has squandered so much of his power in his failed manifestation on the material plane that without the power of the Crystal Skull, he may never again be able to appear in your world, not for eons at least. And Cuthulu remains trapped in his watery tomb under deepest seas still shorn of much of his power of old. Neither of these dark gods will trouble the Earth again for this age of the world, the Hyborian Age, or many long years thereafter -thanks to Conan of Cimmeria!"

"It seems I would be the greatest fool ever to live not to accept your offer!" replied Conan. "And yet that means I shall be dead?"

"Life and death are points of view," answered Mitra. "But yes, if you chose to remain here then you will negate the unnatural youth conferred on you by the power of Cuthulu, your life on the material plane of your world will have come to an end, and you will have died saving it. Though all men save your son believe you to be dead, in any case, and he will know that you died to save your world. But the choice is yours to make, and make freely - I will not gainsay nor judge you if you wish to return to the realm of strife and struggle."

Conan pondered deeply, facing a choice he realized had perhaps never been offered to a man before, and perhaps never would be again.

After a time, he knew the choice he must make if he were true to himself.

"I should happily join the Celestial Realm, were that to be my fate," replied Conan. "But I cannot _choose_ to join it and turn my back on the world of my own free will. Just as I did not turn back across the sea from my voyage to Antillia to retire to a rose garden in Poitain, though that would have been the easier choice for me. I am a son of Crom, as you yourself have said, and his spirt moves my blood - to fight and strive as long as life allows, until fate wrenches my spirit from my body at then end!"

Mitra was silent for some moments. Then he said, "If that is your choice, then so be it. There are those amongst my number who will deem you a fool, not to lay down your heavy burden when that is offered to you, and moreover having incurred the mortal enmity of both Set and Cuthulu! But, I do not think so. In your new life and youthful form you will once more play a role in our struggle against the primal powers of chaos and the void. Your choice then is yours because you are a true champion of men!"

"So you have willed that you return to the material plane, and so it shall be done," concluded Mitra. And without further word, the Crystal Skull dematerialized before Conan's gaze - though to what destination, he would never know - while all about him the light began to fade and grow dim, until again he found himself in the dark, but this time alone.


	16. Dawn and Dusk

Then a blinding flash of light struck Conan's eyes, and searing pain shot through his body, his every limb on fire. He gave a staggered, gasping breath, his chest heaving, as his eyes opened again - to find himself sitting upright on a cot under a makeshift tent, the bright rim of the rising sun scouring a hot blue sky in a dry, dusty landscape, littered with hundreds of scattered tents, the busy forms of the living, and the shattered remains of slain beasts and men.

Moans and cries came up from the other men on the sick-beds about him, and Conan from long years of habit - for this was not the first time he had woken up in an infirmary after a battle - did a quick check of his limbs, noting thankfully that they were all intact. His clothing from Mayapan, he noted, had been disposed of, and in its place he had been given a plain tunic and loincloth of off-white linen, the standard-issue undergarments of an Aquilonian infantrymen.

An elderly orderly shuffled into the tent, dressed in the brown tunic and pantaloons of a servant, and stopped in surprise as he stared at Conan - whose real identity, of course, was utterly unknown to him.

"What a strange sight you are, young man!" exclaimed the orderly. "We all thought you was a goner, brought in fresh from the battlefield on the King's personal command, half trampled in the tumult of battle in which you had collapsed like a stone - so we were told, though there was such chaos in the wake of whatever dark magics the Stygians unleashed on us there was little time to tell the tale. And yet hear you are, miraculously healed and whole it seems! I won't say who you reminded me of for a moment lest I sound like a fool. I suppose all Cimmerian outlanders look alike, meaning no disrespect of course to our young king, may his name be praised before Mitra! Is there anything I can get you, before I tend to the others/"

"Water," replied Conan, who realized his throat was parched. "And a joint of beef, or at least the dried variety and some bread," he continued, realizing also that he was hungry. "A sword, and armour, for I am well enough to be on my feet. And most of all, news of the battle! What has happened since last night? For it seems we had the victory, and yet I have missed the turn of the tide and our triumph over our foes."

"So you do indeed fight for us, barbarian that you are," nodded the orderly. "I wasn't aware we had any mercenaries in our army these days, but then such things are over my head and my pay rate. I'll give you your news in brief, and then your vittles, and then I must be off to tend to the others. The commissary will have to give you a sword and armour, I'm not equipped with either nor allowed to hand them out."

"Then let's have your news," said Conan, growing impatient at this loquacious greybeard - it felt strange to think of him as such, considering his own real age!

"Not sure when you got knocked out," replied the old man, "but when the Shemite cavalry retreated and for good, not one of their ruses - no one is sure why - our army retreated westward to the coast to entrench for the night with the sea to guard our backs. Then the sky grew unnaturally dark, and the sunset grew unnaturally bright. Some kind of Stygian sorcery, we all believe. Some sort of dark shape like a giant serpent slinked down from the sky amid bolts of lightning and howling winds, and then the pandemonium began - men dropping their shields and praying, or cursing and forming squares again without orders."

"Our enemies had it even worse it seems, with the Nemedian auxiliaries, that is the Brythunians, Corinthians and even those damned Zamorians, dropping everything and running for their lives. Perhaps they realized what a bad bargain they had made allying with the accursed Stygians!" He spat on the ground when mentioning the name.

"So that left the Nemedians, Stygians and Kushites still on the battlefield, numbering amongst our enemies. The Nemedians held their ground, but strangely the Stygians and Kushites dropped their weapons, but did not run away. Instead they started bowing and scraping and grovelling on the ground, as if they were in worship on a field of battle!"

"There was a sudden flash of bright light, blindingly bright, a crashing peal of thunder, and then of a sudden the crimson glare to the sky was gone, and the dark, serpent shape was gone, and the stars were clear and bright in the sky above, just as they should have been. It was as if the whole strange scene had been a dream or nightmare, save that the enemy had lost near half his strength through no deeds on our part, but by their own cowardice - or mayhap common sense, showing itself late in the day."

"King Conn ordered us to wheel about and face the enemy again, with our backs to the sea, and then launch a headlong assault against our foes."

"The Nemedians still held their ground, but the Stygians and Kushites panicked, screaming and shrieking and wailing - I've never heard the like from grown men in all my years! I imagine they were unmanned by the failure, or so it seems, of whatever sorcerous mummery they had unleashed on us. They dropped their weapons, and shields, and abandoned their chariots and beasts, and fled headlong into the marshes of the valley of the Styx. It seems they actually planned to swim all the way across that broad stream back to Stygia, and at night if you can believe that!"

"But our Bossonians cut them down with a hail of arrows like wheat falling before the scythe; and then our cavalry, eager for revenge after their humiliation earlier in the day, unleashed hell on them and trampled them into the dust, cutting down even those who sought to surrender. Not one man amongst them lived to tell the tale of their defeat, or so I have heard."

"We fought against the Nemedians under the stars, strange as that may seem, using our superior numbers to envelop them entirely. All night we cut them down and closed the noose on them, though they are were a tough nut to crack."

"Just moments before I came in here to tend to you and saw you wake up, I heard that the remnant of the Nemedians, still under the command of that treacherous cur Archivaius it seems, now offer to surrender and sue for peace! I just came here to deliver word to the wounded, to cheer them up, when I encountered you awake and well."

"And would you know," continued the orderly, "I've heard rumour this morning that the wreckage of what appears to be a Stygian fleet, and many drowned Stygian soldiers and sailors, are washing up on the shore a few miles from here! It seems our foes had planned to drive us towards the sea, with us using it as a protective wall along our backs, only to treacherously have their fleet sail up in the dead of night, conduct a maritime assault, and crush us in their vise, surrounded by enemies on all sides. Mitra himself must have intervened to smash the enemy fleet like toys in a child's bathtub!"

"Indeed he did!" replied Conan in a serious tone. "Although our King, if a humble man like myself might say so, should have thought of the possibility of an attack on our rear by sea before ordering a retreat to shore. Instead he should have ordered a retreat to the highest ground in marching distance, and then set the men to work putting up a double field entrenchment around it. He shouldn't have sought to put our troops' backs to the sea, as if it were but a broad river, when facing off against a naval power like Stygia. For that matter he should have employed our allied Zingaran and Argossean navies to engage the Stygian fleet at sea when the war began. But Aquilonia being a landlocked country, its generals think only of war on land, not war at sea as well."

"You sound like you know your business," replied the orderly. "Though I've heard some rumours about you, young man,"he continued, his face now showing some suspicion, "that you're not just a mercenary, but a Cimmerian mage or shaman! One of the Black Dragons was in here to have his wounds tended, and he said that the Shemites had been disbursed by some sorcery on your part, and that you are the King's mage."

"Rumours are rumours," replied Conan guardedly. "I thank you for your news. Fetch my water and vittles, direct me to the commissary, and I'll trouble you no more today."

The orderly nodded silently, and set to his work, while Conan stood up from his cot, stretched his legs, and prepared himself to greet his son again.

Dressed in the brown tunic, pantaloons and boots of a servant - for the sergeant in charge of the commissary, to Conan's chagrin, had refused to fit him as an outlander with armour and a sword when he was not under explicit orders to do so - Conan threaded his way through the camp as the morning progressed, until he came to the spot he was seeking; the embattled remnant of the Nemedian infantry, hoisting up white flags of surrender, and surrounded entirely by the Aquilonian infantry and their auxiliaries. Though tensions ran high, there was no more fighting for the moment, and Conan could see that Conn had chosen to accept Archivaius' offer of surrender.

There was a fanfare of trumpets as Conn with his mounted Black Dragons approached, and Conan forced his way through the ranks of the infantry to draw as close as possible to the enfolding scene. Finding a favourable vantage point, he chose not to identify himself to Conn for the time being, but rather to watch what would unfold.

Conn and his retinue stopped safely short of the range of any archers hidden in the Nemedian ranks, and then the trumpets sounded again. Higher and shriller trumpets sounded from within the Nemedian camp, and then the shield-wall of the battered fronts lines of the Nemedian infantry briefly opened a narrow gap, though which surged King Archivaius IV, resplendent in golden armour, and two score of his silver-armoured Royal Guard, one of whom bore the Red Dragon standard of Nemedia, in contrast to the White Lion standard of Aquilonia held by Conn's own standard bearer.

Conan had never seen the young Archivaius before, but being an experienced judge of character and mood he could see that the young man's normally smooth and handsome face was unnaturally pale and lined with care - as well it might be, given the circumstances in which he found himself. To say that his scheming had blown up in his face would be an understatement, and it was plain that well he knew it.

At a certain distance from the Black Dragons, the Nemedian Royal Guard came to a halt. Archivaius then rode forth alone, on a magnificent white stallion, and a short time afterward Conn rode out to meet him, his silver armour and the black stallion which he rode a sombre contrast to Archivaius' livery.

"Hail Conan II, King of Aquilonia!" exclaimed Archivaius - using Conn's full name as protocol required. "Archivaius IV, King of Nemedia greets and salutes you. The victory on the field of honour is yours. I present you my sword, and humbly beg that you accept my surrender as your royal brother, observe the funeral ceremonies for my fallen men, and allow my royal person and brave soldiers to decamp from the field of battle, and return without let or hindrance to our Nemedian homeland, never to trouble the proud and mighty folk of Aquilonia again."

Having pronounced the ritual words of a Hyborian surrender ceremony, he then unsheathed his bejewelled golden sword and offered it, hilt first, for Conn's grasp. For Conn to accept it would symbolize his acceptance of the terms of surrender.

Instead Conn stared at him silently for a few moments, his brown eyes cold and hard, before turning to his men and exclaiming in a loud, clear voice, "Do you hear that, men? Yesterday I was the usurper of the Lion Throne of Aquilonia, today I am his 'brother king'!"

A chorus of laughter and cheering rose up from the Aquilonian ranks, though the Nemedians remained as silent as the tomb. Archivaius licked his lips nervously.

"Come, sir," responded Archivaius, trying to maintain a steady voice - a King never addressed another King as "your Majesty," but only as an equal. "Come sir, honour is satisfied. I beg you to accept my sword, and let us depart the field at once. I swear before all men present, and by Mitra himself, that Nemedia shall never trouble you nor your realm again as long as I draw breath."

"So then you swear by Mitra, do you?" asked Conn bitterly. "Then before I accept your surrender, you can explain to all men present, including your own, why you aligned with the Stygian devil-worshippers of Set against your fellow Hyborians and against Mitra himself!"

Archivaius was silent, his face even paler now if possible, while his Royal Guard fingered their sword-hilts nervously, knowing they were too few in number to save their King's life or their own if Conn ordered a massacre. But Conn remained silent, fixing Archivaius with his steady gaze while the young man desperately struggled to devise a suitable reply before all assembled - including his own men.

"There is of course no answer you can give, save that your greed and folly led you to this pass," replied Conn. "I will tell you plainly I was sorely tempted to kill you and all but a handful of your men, and send those back to Nemedia to bring word of the red-handed vengance of Aquilonia and her allies of the West - Zingara, and Argos, and Ophir, and Koth - against the treachery of Nemedia and the East."

"But I deem that is not necessary," Conn continued sagely. "I need not give Nemedia further cause to seek vengeance against me or my realm. Better still, you have discredited yourself in the eyes of your own people more than I ever could have hoped for!"

Archivaius remained silent, his face now drenched in sweat - whether in fear, or under the increasingly oppressive heat of the southern Sun as it rose towards the noon hour, it was difficult to say. Conn then continued:

"I will leave it to you to go back to your capital at Belverus and explain to your people why you betrayed Mitra to aid the worshippers of Set, enemies of all Hyborian folk of East and West, and why so many Nemedian wives are now widows, children are now orphans, and mothers are now bereft of their sons because of your folly! I am half of Nemedian blood myself, as all men know, and so bear an especial grudge against the hardships you have inflicted on your people. Go then, retreat to Nemedia with your tail between your legs, and try and justify to your own folk what you have done! I will wager your own crown will not sit securely upon your head after this debacle, for ambitious nobles wait in the wings of every court to take advantage of the folly of their king. And mind, if you ever do trouble me or my kingdom, or my allies again, I shall not extend you this mercy a second time! Mitra is my witness that my vengeance will be swift, and absolute!"

And with those parting words, Conn took the proffered sword from Archivaius' hand, and held it up in his own. A mighty cheer and cries of joy came forth from the ranks of the Aquilonians and their auxiliaries, while Archivaius, white-faced, his limbs trembling beyond his control, wheeled his horse about and dashed back into the security of his Nemedian camp, his Royal Guard hot on his heels.

Trumpets and drums echoed forth from both camps, and thereafter the Aquilonians opened their ranks as the Nemedians turned about, still maintaining perfect order even after the brutal ordeal they had endured, and began their long march north and east across the grasslands of Shem towards their distant homeland.

"Hail King Conan II! Hail King Conan the Conquerer! Hail! Hail! Hail!" cheered the men, as Conn smiled broadly, waving his new trophy sword in the air.

Conan, for his part, smiled broadly as well. "Well played, my son!" he said out loud, though his voice was drowned out by the wild cheering of the soldiers about him. "But I must yet have words with you, before my work is done this day."

Sitting within his tent as the shadows began to lengthen, and the Sun began its nightly descent towards the West - though the heat and dust of the day still clung thickly in the air, as oppressively as ever - Conn sat on his campaign throne, a portable and diminutive copy in folding canvas with a silver frame of the massive Lion Throne of Tarantia.

As he sipped chilled spiced wine of Poitain from a golden cup and reflected on the events of the day, one of his Black Dragons entered into his tent, saluted, and said, "My liege, we have found the Cimmerian mage whom you had directed us to take to the infirmary when he collapsed amid the battle. As you know, he could not be found when you sent for him this morning, and it seems he had left the infirmary, healthy and whole, and drifted about the camp during the day. He is now as anxious to speak to you as you are to him."

"Thank Crom and Mitra!" exclaimed Conn, quickly curbing his enthusiasm as he noted the disapproving stare on the guardsman's face - Aquilonians were notorious for their intolerance of the worship of any god other than Mitra. "Mitra be praised!" he continued. "This Cimmerian is of more use to me than you know. Send him to my tent at once, and then leave us alone. I wish to speak to him for a time without any disturbance."

"As you wish, my liege," saluted the guardsman. "We will be close by if perchance you need our aid."

The guardsman wheeled about and left the tent, and a short time later Conan stepped through the flaps of the tent into his son's presence - dressed, Conn noted, in the brown tunic and pantaloons of a servant.

"It seems the commissary was stingy with your attire," offered Conn. "We will set that to rights quick enough. But first you and I must speak, father! Help yourself to a goblet of chilled wine, and then explain to me what happened last night! For much that has transpired is a great mystery to me."

"What did you see happen?" asked Conan, as he poured himself a large drought of wine from its silver flagon into another golden cup on a nearby table, drinking it in one huge gulp, before pouring yet another cup for himself and then pulling up a folding camp bench before his son's campaign throne.

"You saw all that happened, right up until that dark monstrous serpent shape descended from the sky amid howling winds, and bolts of lightning," Conn replied. "There was mayhem amongst all the men on both sides and then, right in front of my eyes, you and that strange crystal bauble fixed to your staff disappeared in a flash of light!"

"I thought I had gone mad entirely," continued Conn, "and perhaps had imagined you in some fevered state without your ever having been present at all. There was such chaos, I am not sure any of my men even notice your disappearance, other than me. But of a sudden, there was a blinding flash of light and a peal of thunder, the winds ceased to howl, the lightning ended, and the shadow and flame disappeared under the clean light of the stars as the dark, serpent-shaped column that had descended from the heavens dissolved, and was blown away like the smoke from a fire."

"I know the rest of the story," acknowledged Conan, "save this - how did you find me again?"

"You do not know?" asked Conn with surprise. "When I looked down after the sky had cleared, and the dark magics of the Stygians were borne away on the winds, you suddenly reappeared in front of me in the blink of an eye, as if you had never been gone - but your staff and that crystal skull affixed to it were missing, and you yourself were collapsed on the hard ground and insensate. I had thought you dead, but you still drew breath shallowly. I called up a steed, and had my guardsmen strap you to it, then ordered the leeches to tend to you and for you to be placed in the infirmary as soon as one could be established, while I had to turn my attention to directing the battle that resumed."

"You did well," nodded Conan, savouring another deep draught of the wine. "Crom this is good stuff! I haven't enjoyed the like in a dozen years."

"But what on earth did happen to you, father?" asked Conn.

"That is quite a tale in its own right," replied Conan, who then proceeded to describe as best he could the strange events of the previous evening.

"By Mitra, you must be mad!" said Conn in wonder. "I would have accepted Mitra's offer, were I in your place!"

"You are half a Hyborian and born and bred in the Royal Palace of Tarantia," replied Conan in a serious tone, "but for all the strange deeds and adventures of my long life, I am still a barbarian and the son of a blacksmith from the Cimmerian hills."

"And a true son of Crom," acknowledged Conn. "But it pains me to think I cannot tell anyone of your mighty deeds. Without question you are amongst the greatest heroes of men who have ever lived! Shall your deeds then remain unsung?"

"Most of my deeds are not unsung," smiled Conan, "the minstrels of Tarantia have seen to that. But yes, it is best for you if you breathe no word of these latest deeds of mine to living men lest the revelation shake your own grasp upon the throne - which it would whether men believed you or no."

"Then I shall record your tale in my own hand, for my own private archives, to be read by some sage in some future time unknown," replied Conn.

"A wise choice," nodded Conan. "And speaking of wisdom, would be remiss if I did not impart some more of mine to you before this day is done. You have close to thirty winters and more to your credit, and yet still you have not taken wife! You should not follow my example and wait until old age is almost upon you before choosing your Queen."

"I have heard this advice before, from my counsellors," replied Conn, rolling his eyes. "My answer to you as to them is I have not yet found the woman who with whom I would willingly share my crown."

"That is then a lack of wisdom on your part," replied Conan with a frown. "Let me put it to you plainly; you need to take a wife from amongst the noblewomen of Aquilonia whose families trace descent from the old Aquilonian royal family whom I usurped. And you need to do it soon, for only then will you legitimize your rule in the eyes of your subjects, your nobles and of rival kings. Your children will beyond question trace descent from the old royal house, and in turn you must marry them to the royal houses of Zingara, Argos, Ophir and Koth to further cement their alliances with Aquilonia, and the subordination of their crowns to your own."

"And that is the advice of my counsellors as well," replied Conn impatiently. "Why should I listed to them or to you, when you did not follow your own advice in your own case? You could have married your pick of Aquilonian noblewomen and yet my mother, who you chose to marry, was a Nemedian slave girl! And surely there could have been no better match for you than her!"

"Aye, there was no better match for me than her," replied Conan fondly. "Well I know it."

But then his mood became more stern, and he said, "But you must grasp the nature of your situation, which is not as was mine. I ruled Aquilonia in the manner of the Cimmerian chieftains, who marry whatever woman catches their fancy, and rule by the strength of their swordarm alone! And I took my crown from the head of my slain adversary, my hands still drenched in his blood, with the might of my armies and those nobles loyal to me to back up my claim."

"But you," he continued, "were born into a royal line of succession by the laws of the Hyborians - though tenuously, for neither your father nor your mother have a trace of royal blood, nor even any Aquilonian blood. Save for your friends at court, you have no base of power in the land; for my old supporters amongst the nobles without whom I could not have claimed the Lion Throne are long dead, and their sons and grandsons serve their own interests and not yours. If you have come to power by the Hyborian laws of succession, how then can you spurn those laws when deciding whom to take to wife, and whom your children shall take as wives and husbands? Your crown will not sit securely upon your head, nor your head remain securely attached to your shoulders, until you heed my words and put them into action!"

"I cannot gainsay the wisdom of your words," replied Conn regretfully, "though I have never liked the royal custom of choosing a wife for myself, and mates for my sons and daughters to be born, like a farmer breeding his prime stock for the county fair!"

"Then you can console yourself at least by making sure the ivory-skinned and rose-balmed noble maiden whom you marry is the fairest on offer amongst the descendants of the ancient royal line," replied Conan with a grin. "No need for you to marry a fat sow ready for market! You can save that fate for one of your own children if they offend you!"

"Aye, at least there's that!" replied Conn with a laugh.

But then Conn's own mood turned serious, and he said, "But how now, father? What do you intend to do, if you will not assume the throne again, nor allow me to let other men know the truth of your deeds or even your true name?"

"It's your turn to wear the crown of Aquilonia upon a troubled brow, and mine to seize the world by the throat again as a young man!" replied Conan with a smile. "Though my name remains my own and may be shared freely - it is a common enough name in the Cimmerian highlands. It is my true identity you must not share in your own lifetime."

"And yet can you not at least accompany me back to Tarantia?" asked Conn with a frown. "I could surely use your counsel, which I value above that of all other men."

"I did not regain the my long-lost youth to squander it playing the role of greybeard counsellor to the King!" replied Conan. "And it would not help your reputation with the pious worshippers of Mitra if they thought you had taken a Cimmerian shaman - for so the men of the camp seem to think I am - as one of your Royal Counsellors."

"But surely I will not abandon you entirely to your fate," Conan continued. "Give me one of the Royal Warrants you carry with you, so that I may freely entered your palace again when I deem you might have need of my aid. I will see you again soon enough, not least to see if you have followed the counsel I have given you!"

"For now," concluded Conan, "aside from your Warrant, give me some proper armour and a sword, a good steed, and enough provender for me to make my way to the nearest Shemetish city up the coast. And perhaps a fat purse or two of gold and silver coins. I deserve a good carousing, after all I have gone through!"

"Indeed you do," replied Conn with a laugh as both men stood up and embraced each other. "All shall be as you have asked!"

"Good lad!" replied Conan with a smile, clapping his son on the shoulder as they both set to work preparing him for the journey ahead.

As Conn and several of the Black Dragons looked on an hour later, Conan, now further equipped with the light steel cap, breastplate and modest round shield of a mounted scout, but the heavy broadsword of an Aquilonian knight, mounted the strapping dun-coloured steed provided for him. He checked that the saddlebags full of water, provender and coin were secured to the light leathern saddle, and then turned the steed about and faced the King.

"Farewell, your Majesty!" he exclaimed loudly, "until we meet again!" And with that he turned about and was off at a gallop, soon receding towards the west and north under the light of the setting sun in a clear azure sky, the first stars of the evening shining forth.

"Do you actually think you will see him again, your Majesty?" asked one of the Black Dragons, turning to Conn in surprise. "He is a mercenary and an outlander, after all."

"Will I see him again? Of that I have no doubt," replied Conn with a smile, as he returned to the shelter of his tent. "Only Mitra knows, but I believe he and I have at least one more adventure left to share!"

 _But that is another story..._


End file.
